MAISON GROTTE by Dave Wellings

I can understand why so many writers grant the status of character to a house. It can be pivotal to the plot and a catalyst for events. Although twenty years have passed since I sold Maison Grotte and the residents have dispersed around the globe, we still refer to the place as we would to an amiable but slightly disreputable old friend.

I had bought the house on a whim. After several overseas RAF postings and an overland journey across Europe and Africa, I was ready to settle down for a while in Rhodesia. I had in mind a bachelor flat in a cheap suburb of Salisbury, perhaps with garage space to build another racing car. The Hatfield filling station doubled as the local real estate office and the jovial proprietor assured me he knew of the ideal property for me, not one hundred metres away. We walked back along the service road to a wide, squat house fronted by a solid stone wall. Large Grecian urns serving as flower pots topped the gate posts, in keeping with the formal Mediterranean-style front garden. The house had a distinctive style with flying buttresses on either side appearing to prop up the white walls. The original owner had been Portuguese, I was told, and the only surviving member of his family had moved to Cape Town. At that time many white residents were leaving the war-torn country.

“Rent it for a while,” the agent suggested, “And if you like it, buy it on Deed of Sale; you won’t need a deposit.”

“Buy it?”

The thought had never occurred to me but I could now see that there was indeed a large garage, as well as servants’ quarters and a chook house.

“It’s a bit bigger than I actually need…”

A masterpiece of understatement coming from someone with a backpack, a sleeping bag and a toothbrush.

“Four bedrooms plus five acres of land,” the agent cheerfully informed me. “You’ve got grapevines, avocadoes, pomegranates, quinces – every kind of fruit tree you could wish for. Do you like gardening?”

“No.”

“I’ll find you a gardener. Come back after five, I’ll make an appointment to view.”

The house was currently being rented by the de Witt family and when I returned at the appointed hour, they were all at home. Mum, Dad and the four boys were already packing to move to their new home and the place was in chaos. Every person and every piece of furniture appeared to be moving around simultaneously. I tried to keep out of the way while looking around the rooms. Nailed to the picture rail of every room at intervals of 12 centimetres were small painted wooden plaques of the crucifixion. Mr de Witt, a dour Afrikaner showed me around, then like a judge pronouncing a life sentence, he intoned: “Mr Vellinks, you vill be very happy here.”

The omens were good. A few weeks earlier at a cinema I had entered a competition – it involved writing a promotional slogan for the film – and I had won a rather grand hi-fi system. The prize arrived a few days after I had moved into the empty house. No longer did my footsteps echo on the stone floor, instead, Mendelssohn’s piano concertos and Dvorak’s string quartets bounced off the bare walls. I had by now withdrawn the nails from holding the pieces of wood depicting a man nailed to a piece of wood. The house felt happy.

My need was essentially for a base in town as my job as a field research officer involved working in the bush for three weeks in every month. Two of my work colleagues were in a similar position so I invited them to move in. My friend Steve with whom I had travelled across Africa, had grown tired of the YMCA and he too moved in. The house had suddenly filled up.

We were rarely there at the same time but I had engaged a young gardener who lived on site and provided security while we were away. The veggie patch and fruit trees he tended occupied less than half of the long narrow block. The far end of it was bordered by a stream, a tributary of the Hunyani River and during extreme winter droughts leopards would come to drink and hunt guinea fowl (and our neighbours’ chooks) – we rarely ventured down there.

The house was situated mid-way between the city and the airport making it a convenient stop-off for travellers in transit. Neal arrived one night from New Zealand, homeless and penniless and stayed for a few months until he found a job. My nephew, recently graduated from university in the UK, arrived to take up a job as a geologist and stayed with us for two years. There was always an eclectic mix at Maison Grotte; it was like an annexe of the United Nations.

One day our gardener begged me to take in a 16 year old African refugee. Chris and his mother were the only members of their family to survive the civil war in Mozambique and they had walked all the way from Beira. His mother had been admitted to hospital and Chris, destitute and exhausted had nowhere to stay. We offered him a camp bed, sharing the veranda with Iain who just happened to be the second son of a Scottish viscount. Neither objected.

The narrow veranda was enclosed by windows and stretched across the front of the house. We used it as a games room with table-tennis matches taking on international significance. A blackboard displaying the scores gave a clue to the residents of the time: England v Australasia, Europe v The USA, Africa v The Rest of the World.On Friday nights we showed films for the boxers I was training. Interspersed with the classic fights of Sugar Ray Robinson or Cassius Clay we’d have ‘The Champ’ starring Charlie Chaplin or something from Laurel and Hardy ( known to the locals as Mr Little and Mr Big). I would also show films of our boxers’ recent bouts and invite criticism – rather like the Clifton Writers Group…

The house was given its pretentious name as a joke. I had to explain to the Africans that Maison Grotte was French for Cave House and that grotty was also English slang for scruffy. Nevertheless, it became well-known and many international boxing tournaments, wrestling shows and pop concerts were organised over cups of tea at its modest kitchen table. There was another house popular with back-packers (or overlanders, as they were known in those days). The Palace was an inner-city house in Union Avenue and the inmates had tee-shirts printed: THE PALLUS – with a lower case ‘h’ inserted between the P and A. The place had a reputation for drugs and easy virtues and we took care to distance ourselves by having our own tee-shirts printed: Maison Grotte Cultural Centre. Again, it was meant tongue in cheek but as we were often seen on television at sporting events, it was sometimes taken seriously.

After ten years it was time to move on. Robert Mugabe’s Marxist government had run out of foreign currency and it was no longer possible for us to promote our international shows. The house was sold – again on Deed of Sale – and we all went our different ways. Payments for the house could not be expatriated and so, having moved to Melbourne, the only way to access the money was to go to Zimbabwe on holiday. I went back for the last time in 1987 and couldn’t resist one more look at Maison Grotte.

The front gate had been removed and when I went down the drive to the backyard I was surprised to see the old well which had been covered over for decades was once again in commission. I assumed that the new owners hadn’t paid their water rates. I knocked on the back door and called out a greeting in chiShona. There was no answer but I heard voices from the kitchen. I knocked again and opened the door. Six African women were sitting cross-legged on the stone floor around a kerosene stove, cooking sadza porridge. Most of them were nursing babies – the house was soon to be full again. When I told them who I was, they invited me to stay for some sadza but I declined and thanked them with the traditional hand clapping motion. There was no water, no electricity and the once-prolific garden now produced nothing but corn – for making sadza – but I suppose it was what they wanted.

I said, “I think you will be very happy here,” and left for the last time.

Dave Wellings 2006 ©