* Walter will not get a letter this week due to the unfortunate disappearance of Nelson’s briefcase in Smal Street, Johannesburg. We present this occasional column instead
FOLLOWING is a cautionary tale for those seeking a modest weekend getaway in the Magaliesberg. There is a farm on the R24, in the shadow of cliffs where Cape vultures nest, that is haunted. It does not look haunted. It has tractors, cows. There is a stone cottage for rent, R95 per person per night.
But it has to be haunted. Nothing like it can possibly exist in 1997.
Consider the clues. First, we cannot find the farm. We pass the place where the map says it is, and nothing. We pass three times and then phone. “But you are here!” our host says.
Only then do we see the sign, a weathered bit of board nailed to a tree. I think at the time it is because we are tired and the light’s bad, but realise now that the farm was probably invisible.
So relieved are we to arrive, it is impossible to imagine that in two days we will be desperate to leave, packing fast, frantic to get away.
Nothing is as it is supposed to be. “Trails” turn out to be cow tracks, unmarked and going in circles until petering out in impenetrable brambles. The old farm “road” that passes Anglo-Boer-War-era blockhouses fails to materialise. We wander in the hot sun for an hour, in a maze of red-dirt ruts.
A cobra rears up out of a hole in a sandbank, hood flared and eyes mean. And continues to weave wide, angry figure-eights in the air long after we retreat to a safe distance. The children cry (first in fear, and then because they hadn’t seen it properly and wanted to go back).
We go back to make a fire, and sit back to listen to the jackals and wind, but all we hear are trucks. Things fall apart. The hot water runs out. The next morning there is no water at all, and no electricity. Our hostess flings a R20 note at us as rebate.
But it is the farmer who gives the theory substance. Greets us the first morning with the full unquiet story of his life, starting with his divorce (which does not bear repeating in public, but is a ghost story if there ever was one).
He tells us about why he quit tobacco farming. He had 80 workers on his tobacco farm. He saw the new South Africa coming – long before anyone else did. Fired the workers and went into cattle-ranching, which is less labour- intensive. Fewer of “them” to worry about.
And the pottery shed he ran, using clay from the land and local labour. His workers approached him one day about joining a labour union. He fired them all and closed the shed. And noted with satisfaction the only reason he rehired two was because they came begging. Their families were starving.
“Unions,” he snorts. “New South Africa”. Country being run by “kaffir-boys and Indians”.
He smiles suddenly, turning to watch the children as they pet one of the farm dogs, a black Labrador retriever crossbreed.
“Look,” he says to them indulgently. “A little black helper for you.”
But then a miracle happens. He starts to fade. He grows pale and indistinct, then transparent. We can see right through him. He screams, an unearthly yowl, and vanishes. All that’s left is a pile of ashes and a curl of smoke in the air.
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