parked outside one of the big hotels.
What happened next was contentious. John's version of the story, which I'm inclined to believe, because for all his faults the old man wasn't a bullshitter, he didn't have the imagination for one thing, was that he fell asleep in a taxi. When he woke up, they were parked in a disused layby in Germiston, with the driver rifling through his pockets. Now Germiston is a busy railway junction district to the south-east of the city which is dominated by the largest gold refinery in the world. We lived on the road out to Kempton Park, which is north of the city centre.
John assaulted the taxi driver with such force and vigour that several of the man's teeth were produced, in a plastic bag, by the prosecution in the courtroom, as a theatrical piece of evidence. The taxi driver claimed that he was trying to get this obnoxious drunk who was giving him the run-around out of his car, when he was violently assaulted. John got sentenced to six months' imprisonment. It seems that he was made an example of by the authorities, anxious to clamp down on violence in downtown Johannesburg.
Vet was well fucked up. I remember her at that time; chainsmoking and drinking cups of tarry coffee with around eight sugars in it. We left our new home in northern Johannesburg and stayed briefly at Gordon's before making plans to return to Scotland. John would follow once he'd served out his sentence. Kim and I were devastated at the prospect of going back. We'd settled. I could see myself right back in the same life, the same school, the same scheme.
I was gloomy in my resignation, only a sick anxiety brought on by the dread of leaving occasionally alleviating my depression. Edinburgh to me represented serfdom. I realised that it was exactly the same situation as Johannesburg; the only difference was that the Kaffirs were white and called schemies or draftpaks. Back in Edinburgh, we would be Kaffirs; condemned to live out our lives in townships like Muirhouse or So-Wester-Hailes-To or Niddrie, self-contained camps with fuck all in them, miles fae the toon. Brought in tae dae the crap jobs that nae other cunt wanted tae dae, then hassled by the polis if we hung around at night in groups. Edinburgh had the same politics as Johannesburg: it had the same politics as any city. Only we were on the other side. I detested the thought of going back to all that shite.
Bernard had hated South Africa from the start and couldn't wait to get home. Tony was ambivalent. He'd been shagging a few birds, but wanted to see his old mates. Being older, though, he had a vibe, a vibe about all the political trouble which we never really knew much about.
Maybe in retrospect I could say that there was a strange mood amongst the whites my folks socialised with. It's just possible, though, that I'm inventing it with the benefit of hindsight. Did everybody really seem a wee bit edgy? Probably. The only real talk I remember was of what people (and I do remember there were some dodgy looking cunts Gordon hung around with) referred to as the selling out of Rhodesia, which was now called Zimbabwe-Rhodesia. That and the constant references to terrorists. Gordon spoke Afrikaans and preferred the Afrikaans papers like Die Transvaler and Die Vaderland to the Rand Daily Mail and the Johannesburg Star. He once took us to the Voortrekker Monument which dominates the southern approaches to Pretoria and rabbited on about the great trek. This seemed to affect him in the same way Churchill's wartime speeches did my Dad.
Once Gordon took us to the Museum of The Republick Van Suid-Afrika. It was an interesting place to visit. The information boards in the museum mirrored what I'd read in my school textbooks:
The white citizens of the Union are mostly descendants of early Dutch and British settlers, with smaller admixtures of French, German and other West-European peoples. The White man originally came to South Africa as a soldier, farmer, trader, missionary
What happened next was contentious. John's version of the story, which I'm inclined to believe, because for all his faults the old man wasn't a bullshitter, he didn't have the imagination for one thing, was that he fell asleep in a taxi. When he woke up, they were parked in a disused layby in Germiston, with the driver rifling through his pockets. Now Germiston is a busy railway junction district to the south-east of the city which is dominated by the largest gold refinery in the world. We lived on the road out to Kempton Park, which is north of the city centre.
John assaulted the taxi driver with such force and vigour that several of the man's teeth were produced, in a plastic bag, by the prosecution in the courtroom, as a theatrical piece of evidence. The taxi driver claimed that he was trying to get this obnoxious drunk who was giving him the run-around out of his car, when he was violently assaulted. John got sentenced to six months' imprisonment. It seems that he was made an example of by the authorities, anxious to clamp down on violence in downtown Johannesburg.
Vet was well fucked up. I remember her at that time; chainsmoking and drinking cups of tarry coffee with around eight sugars in it. We left our new home in northern Johannesburg and stayed briefly at Gordon's before making plans to return to Scotland. John would follow once he'd served out his sentence. Kim and I were devastated at the prospect of going back. We'd settled. I could see myself right back in the same life, the same school, the same scheme.
I was gloomy in my resignation, only a sick anxiety brought on by the dread of leaving occasionally alleviating my depression. Edinburgh to me represented serfdom. I realised that it was exactly the same situation as Johannesburg; the only difference was that the Kaffirs were white and called schemies or draftpaks. Back in Edinburgh, we would be Kaffirs; condemned to live out our lives in townships like Muirhouse or So-Wester-Hailes-To or Niddrie, self-contained camps with fuck all in them, miles fae the toon. Brought in tae dae the crap jobs that nae other cunt wanted tae dae, then hassled by the polis if we hung around at night in groups. Edinburgh had the same politics as Johannesburg: it had the same politics as any city. Only we were on the other side. I detested the thought of going back to all that shite.
Bernard had hated South Africa from the start and couldn't wait to get home. Tony was ambivalent. He'd been shagging a few birds, but wanted to see his old mates. Being older, though, he had a vibe, a vibe about all the political trouble which we never really knew much about.
Maybe in retrospect I could say that there was a strange mood amongst the whites my folks socialised with. It's just possible, though, that I'm inventing it with the benefit of hindsight. Did everybody really seem a wee bit edgy? Probably. The only real talk I remember was of what people (and I do remember there were some dodgy looking cunts Gordon hung around with) referred to as the selling out of Rhodesia, which was now called Zimbabwe-Rhodesia. That and the constant references to terrorists. Gordon spoke Afrikaans and preferred the Afrikaans papers like Die Transvaler and Die Vaderland to the Rand Daily Mail and the Johannesburg Star. He once took us to the Voortrekker Monument which dominates the southern approaches to Pretoria and rabbited on about the great trek. This seemed to affect him in the same way Churchill's wartime speeches did my Dad.
Once Gordon took us to the Museum of The Republick Van Suid-Afrika. It was an interesting place to visit. The information boards in the museum mirrored what I'd read in my school textbooks:
The white citizens of the Union are mostly descendants of early Dutch and British settlers, with smaller admixtures of French, German and other West-European peoples. The White man originally came to South Africa as a soldier, farmer, trader, missionary
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