The Cricket Club in Constantia
Some places hold a country's contradictions more honestly than they intend to. This is an afternoon spent at a cricket club in the affluent suburb of Constantia, Cape Town — where the beer is cold, the past is present, and a joke gets told three times without anyone asking why.
“Today is a great day in South Africa’s history. An ANC MP grew a conscience and threw himself out of a window!” A middle-aged man gallops into the clubhouse effusively, wearing a faded peak cap that he likely won at pub quiz, along with a shot glass and a R500 tab at the bar.
It is 2.15pm on a Wednesday afternoon, and Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” is playing in the background. A table of five elderly men, all over 70, nurse the tepid remnants of their once ice-Cold Castle Lite beers. Their faces, shades of scarlet, reflect decades spent under the harsh Southern African sun. “That Steenhuisen - he’s a doos hey”, says the head of the table, referring to the bumptious leader of the political opposition. His companions grumble in agreement.
Outside, the emergency tape that denotes the edge of the pitch flutters, spinning, loosely tied between two skeletal wooden poles. An overreaction, it seems to the gentle, cool breeze - a reminder that these past three days of sunshine have only offered us just the illusion of Spring. In the background, two people in white and orange spray-paint the sight screen of the First Team Cricket pitch - workers preparing the scene for the summer season of sport from which they are more than likely excluded. Cricket. A gentleman’s game. At least here, in Constantia, the refuge of the rich.
A moment or two passes, and the quietest at the table, with a lilt that suggests a dripping of northern Natal, starts recounting the details of the Old Boys over-70s rugby match held last weekend, lamenting the fact that Wilkso lost the SACS team 11 points by dropping the up and unders. His neighbour turns to him - “Wilkso? I fought with that bugger in the Rhodesian Bush War!”. A sense of excitement flutters around the table, as they all ready themselves to share tales of their valiant days of combat.
Table Mountain, ever present, the centre of our collective compass, lulls itself to sleep as the evening sun wins its battle with the fragile blanket of clouds, a Capetonian’s most trustworthy companion at this time of the year.
The bill arrives, delivered in deference by a fifty-something year old waiter wearing a Stella Artois polo shirt and a nametag - “Sembi”. While one of the men tells a story of ambush, the others dig furtively in their pockets and gather their cash.
“Cash?”, the most recent addition to the group, an expat with a Yorkshire accent desperate to fit in, exclaims in surprise. “I can’t remember the last time I paid for something in cash.”
More workers enter the scene, dropped off by a bakkie at the back of the building. Twelve, maybe thirteen of them, line the outside of the cricket boundary. Digging, digging, piercing the grass with the sharp edges of their spades, their rakes, their pitchforks.
From the smokers’ corner, again, I hear the regular shout out: “Hey Tommy! Did you hear? Did you hear? Today is a great day in South Africa’s history. An ANC MP grew a conscience and threw himself out of a window.”
It’s the third time he’s said it this hour.
