Best friends and Jeppe days

Sometimes family isn’t a thing of blood. Sometimes we bring people in and forge something new but equally familial. Winsome and I fought like sisters; words and fists—we’d sulk and storm off and hit and huff and all the stuff that girlfriends inflict upon one another when they spend endless amounts of time together. Like the time we shared a bed on netball tour in Standard 5 and pissed each other off so much that Winsome took a blanket and slept in the bath. But we always found a way back to friendship, like our souls were entwined and no matter how much we infuriated each other the cult of sisterhood could not be quashed.

Even as we grew out of girlhood and said goodbye to make-believe, relying less on the comfortable ease and familiarity of our twosome, our friendship was solid in spite of sharing ourselves with others. Time did its thing and High School sprung upon us. We exchanged the palm tree sentinels and long walk up the Derby Road driveway at Leicester Road Primary for the dark corridors and tradition-soaked bricks of Jeppe High School for Girls.

At Jeppe, two turned into four—Winsome, Karyn (from Leicester), Tara (a new kid) and I. We sat together every break, in the same spot. Our spot. Under that big tree in front of the new block, sandwiched between the red brick of modernity and the older, solemner brown of the time-stained school building that faced Roberts Avenue. Every break—laughing and bitching whilst smashing out forgotten Geography homework, and talking about ‘Bold’ and ‘Days’ and how hot Johnny Depp is and whether Jordan Catelano would finally kiss Angela. Sometimes we’d talk with mouths full of Ghost Pops, four worms and a Caramello Bear from the tuckshop—R2’s worth of break-time joy. We spent copious hours fixing ladders our stockings with clear nail varnish (someone always had some!), and in winter the dry grass would stick to our jerseys and stockings, so we looked like children of Africa.

There was also the great dog-food scandal. Someone was stealing Karyn’s lunch, over and over (she did have killer lunch, so this was no surprise)—our friend didn’t “tell” or cry or wallow: no, Karyn made a plan. A dogfood sandwich. Ha. That day…we waited in anticipation; the culprit took her lunch, as usual. The next day, her lunch stayed put. And was never stolen again. Success! Oh how we celebrated.

We complained and fought and wrote letters to one another about one another (nicknames: Keys, Mushy, Joe and Anj) but our foursome was genuine. And when paired off, it was usually Tara and I, and Winsome and Karyn. Tara and I bonded over rugby and we hung out a lot out of school. Winsome and I shared a childhood and the legacy forged was never broken even when we thought it was. Karyn and I were sense-of-humour soul makes—to this day my best friends (including the love of my life) are deeply (deeply) sarcastic people. I’ve found that the things I admire most in the world are often the ones I am least good at or don’t come naturally to me. Sarcasm is one such thing.

The secret to great sarcasm, I think, is that when it is dished, the person on the receiving end has no idea whether you’re being serious or not. I am far too obvious a human being to rock this kinda attitude. But Karyn—oh man! She’d say something and have absolutely zero expression on her face, and leave her audience wondering. We were like ying and yang—Karyn was so freaken dry whilst I am not easily offended, also slightly mad (It’s my Irish blood) and quite lively (I make a great audience) with a storyteller’s knack for hyperbole, the combination of which was like laughing-gas; an atmosphere that transcended words and was transmitted through a synchronistic association of brain matter, like our neurons connected mid-air, and cracked a joke before we were even aware. Of course, there was banter and always the ridiculousness of girls laughing hard about nothing at all but with Karyn, often all it took was a look. In fact, it became a thing; Karyn was forbidden from attending the public speaking competitions I was involved in (and I did this all through High School) out of fear (on the part of my coach) that I would laugh because I absolutely would have! It happened a couple of times in class but usually I could stifle the giggle and continue the monologue except there was this one time…and I can promise you it wasn’t nerves or awkwardness; it was Karyn’s face. That Afrikaans speech in Mrs Taffara’s class room in Standard 9: I stood there, ready to spout out some or other nonsense I had made up the night before and as I looked up, there she was in the back row, her lack of expression a mask for the smirk that I knew full well was lurking beneath (her usual expression, in other words). I dared not speak because words would have been obliterated by a fit of laughter. So, I just stood. Trying to avoid hysterics. My teacher staring at me. My class staring at Karyn because I was staring at Karyn. Not tolerating such childishness, Mrs Taffara encouraged me to get on with it, which I didn’t…until somehow I managed to get over myself and speak some words. Very badly. Karyn got a talking to (admonished for the sin of being herself) and suffice to say my teacher was not at all endeared by my efforts.

The other subject that seemed to provoke high jinks was Maths. Maths was rubbish; if it wasn’t English, History or Art, I wasn’t interested, and as with Afrikaans, had a lackadaisical attitude about its relevance in my life. I did my work (barely—as in barely) but it was so boring that any excuse not to listen in class was welcome, whether staring out the window or talking to the person next to me and when everyone was silent, I’d doodle—until being interrupted by some or other necessary sum or activity, like the times table game. A select few of us would be called upon to stand in front of the class and catch some type of sock ball thing, which that would fly in the air to the tune of a times table question shouted out by our teacher Mrs Hladik (whose husband was a Swedish spy by the way): ‘8×7—Andrea!’ Not even time to work it out on my fingers because I had to catch the stupid sock ball. Maths sucked—couldn’t I spell or name verbs or talk about character development or something? In Standard 7 before we found ourselves in different maths classes, Winsome, Tara, Karyn and I sat together but were far too chatty for anyone’s good, to the point that Mrs Hladik hauled the four of us out of class in a white rage one lesson, embarking on the mother of all lectures in the corridor. We stood in a circle of shame, our eyes facing downwards, searching for the sobering indifference of the concrete floor in a desperate and sincere attempt not to break into quakes of laughter. The combination of awkwardness (this time, yes) and knowing that this was absolutely NOT the time to laugh, which of course made me (us) want to laugh even more, was like in the movies when they chuck the cigarette onto the fuel and everything explodes in nanoseconds. I made the mistake of catching Karyn’s eye in the circle and with hilarity on the verge of eruption, proceeded to gnaw a hole in my cheek as my teeth grabbed on to lip, tongue anything that would distract me from the hysterics that were slowly but surely slipping out. It was bad. But so funny. Mrs Hladik’s words are a blur. We were moved into four separate corners of the classroom; with me being right at the front (oh joy).  In spite of this much deserved verbal lambasting by our teacher, it was she of matrimonial spyness who came to our rescue when the powers that be decided to split up the friendship cliques in my class.

At the start of Standard 6, we were streamlined into classes according to intelligence and ability as indicated by our primary school marks—so the top class was A and B, C, D and E followed. A controversial system (although common in all high schools at the time) that was later euphemised—classes were re-named to spell KNOWLEDGE. The A class became K and the Bs Ns and so on…because this was far less obvious, of course.

For some reason, at Jeppe, legend had it that B usually outranked A on all fronts but in particular reference to the tacit ‘devotion to school’ category of awesomeness…except my class. It just so happened that collected together in 6/7B (’95 and ’96) were a bunch of girls who weren’t all that partial to team work, and the acclaim that came with winning. So that after two years of us not coming first in any class competitions and living up to our over-achieving legacy, it was decided that we would be discontinued. Eradicated. Exterminated. The funny thing was, though, that whilst it seemed like we were all decidedly blasé about school life in general, we were united in singular purpose—an aversion to the Jeppe doctrine that was preached by a teacher who made it clear that she cared mostly about having the highest achieving class in the grade. Nah—we weren’t going to dance along to that tune and chose rather to rage against the machine of expectation. Also, we sucked at agreeing. Like the time we had to knit blankets for the homeless as part of an inter-class competition (probably made competitive to motivate us because poverty wasn’t going to get a bunch of mostly white middle class girls to learn to knit); one girl in our class knitted the entire blanket. Jennifer was moved into the A class a year later. The rest of us shunned the unfairly placed expectation that we learn to knit even if it was for the underprivileged. Shocking, I know. So, we had one blanket, made by one girl, and the A class, well…they either cared about winning or cared about the poor.

There was another social conscience type of project that was part of Jeppe life; we had to make toys that would be given to underprivileged children in the community. What an amazing cause! Except most of us made beanbags – two pieces of material stitched together and filled with beans – that could be used for throwing and…well, throwing. Whilst I had no idea how to knit, I had a better idea of how to sew. My very lazy beanbag was alright—well, better than Ambra’s; she’d tacked hers together that morning and all the beans were falling out, which was a great source of entertainment for the rest of us. Ambra’s effort (or lack thereof) made the rest of the bean bags look pretty good so, really, she saved the day! And I can’t talk about Ambra without mentioning the day she called a parallelogram a rhombus in maths. Mrs Hladik was so angry – the white rage, yet again – that she left the classroom in a tempest, slamming the one-way door so hard that she broke its temperament; that door swung unnaturally back and forth while we (definitely me!) congratulated Ambra for getting us out of a maths lesson. Except worse was to come. The mistaken parallelogram was the tipping point for our class.

There were many reprobate moments (within the context of a well-achieving, highly regarded all-girls school, so “reprobate” in relative context) but we did shape up sometimes; our class play in standard 7 (Bridge over Bubbled Waters by the talented Nadia P—who always had the slight inch on me in English) was truly brilliant but eventually, our class was re-shaped in an effort to make us try harder, win some more competitions and develop a social conscience. Not even Catherine Shaw’s award–winning depiction of Eugene Terblanche was enough to save us. (Also the time that Winsome and I bolted off the stage and out the back door because we split seconds to get to the side door of the hall to play our part as reporters; the sheer frenzy had us in fits of laughter, which got out of control when Winsome tripped and nearly collapsed head first down the stairs—oh the joy of the “almost fall”). Our class was split up. Many friends were manoeuvred into different classes but our foursome remained intact thanks to Mrs Hladik, and I really do have no idea why she stuck up for us but I am glad for it because little did we know that our crew was nearing its end.

Our re-shaped class did retain some if its rebellion as we missioned forth as seniors; our class dance in Standard 8 was happily horrendous—no coherency, cohesion, rhythm or skill. And whilst other classes had made an effort to create some sort of theme or design reflected in their dance costumes, we simply wore different colour shirts because no one could agree on what costume to actually wear…and no one cared. You’re only winning or losing if you’re playing the game, right?

I think perhaps it was always hard for me to lose Winsome, and I have tears in my eyes as I write this so I suspect the truth of this is real—she was my sister. We sort of drifted apart as we invested in different people and priorities…and then poof!

Winsome didn’t tell me—I was no longer her confidante. And of course she didn’t tell me; I didn’t get it. It was Karyn who stood by her. It was Karyn who told me and Tara. And the three of us didn’t quite know how to function as a threesome; we were stuck, not individually (we would get through the weirdness of it all on our own) but together…we were stuck. It was like that time that Miss Maughan told us to go and fetch the balance beam from the corridor to use for a P.E lesson. Winsome, Tara and Karyn and I made our way into the long, narrow passage behind the hall, found the beam, which was almost as long as the corridor, and attempted to move it. Quickly realising that the maths of the situation was not likely to work out, we tilted, hoisted, dragged…and ended up in a not unfamiliar fit of hysterics when we realised that our attempts were futile and that we were likely to spend the entire P.E lesson in the corridor (which was fine—none of us rated the balance beam). Miss Maughan eventually came to see what the deal was and finding us in a state of WTF? laughed candidly at our efforts and apologised for asking us to do what was clearly impossible. The only way to move that cursed beam would have been to saw it in half. When Winsome left, we split up—each one of us turning to our other friendship groups. We couldn’t be what we were without her. I didn’t quite know what to do with all of it other than simply get on with it. So, I did. I had no idea how to relate to this person who I felt like I no longer knew, at all; so I just didn’t. Winsome had her baby. I did school. Our paths diverged. Such a long way from the picture of us sitting in the river at Underberg, 12 years old, in our swimming costumes as we allowed the cool water to wash over us under the big, bright African sun, smiling at my mom as she snapped the moment.

But Winsome is a fighter. She had her baby, kept her baby, married her baby’s daddy,

had two more babies (one of whom passed away tragically at a very young age—and never was there a more devoted mother). Winsome studied to get her Matric and worked her ass off to build a career that would make anyone jealous. Somewhere in the midst of all this, I apologised—for being lame; for my lack of understanding, for being judgmental and inconsiderate. As adults, there is the same easiness to our conversation and down-to-earthness that comes from growing up together. We may live continents apart but I know that the sisterhood survives—all my respect and admiration to you, my friend.

 

Author & Storyteller: Andrea Zanin

Andrea is a writer, wife, mother and dreamer; also the author of this website. She moved to London in 2006 to earn £s, travel, see bands and buy 24-up Dr Martens—which she did, and then ended up staying. Andrea lives in North London with her husband (also a Saffa) and five children. She loves this grand old city but misses her home and wishes her children could say “lekker” (like a South African) and knew what a “khoki” is.