Gan Chase

• Jessica Van Heerden, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2019

East London, South Africa: the furthest possible place from Brandon, England on the continent of Africa. Yet without a doubt it was the only place worth considering.

The scent of fortune and riches still so fresh it could almost be tasted. No matter that the recent discoveries of Gold where in a different part of Africa, how big can it be really? The Chase family jumped at the opportunity to leave barren England for the job-rich country: South Africa in 1904, sponsored by the newly acquired husband of one of Mrs Chase’s most frequented sources for local gossip.

When facing new and unfamiliar situations, people tend to find the familiar and cling desperately to it. Perhaps this was why Gan Chase’s brother opened a bottle store within the first week of his arrival in South Africa. And perhaps this was why Gan Chase, sick and tired of the unordered, lazy humidity, turned up her nose and opened a boarding house.

Gan Chase’s spectacles where always hot to the touch, doubtless bubbling over with the disapproval detained by an ever-pursed upper lip. They were attached to the centre of her tight grey, Victorian bun, that could be seen peeking out over the horizon of her flattened head. The spectacles where attached with a single gold pin, from which two delicate gold chains hung, each connecting to an earpiece. The dainty chains hovered purposefully over her shoulder, making sure that small children washed their faces.

The traditional English boarding house was to be called ‘Brandon house’ in keeping with the occupants who travelled to the exotic land of Africa for the English winter and returned to the mother land when the weather was more to their liking (bearing stories of crazed natives glimpsed on the other side of the white picket fence). Tenants lived in an English breakfast bubble, two sugars please.

The tenants where provided with three meals a day, and tea if you please. Mieliemeal, a porridge made from corn, was later introduced to the breakfast menu, Gan Chase progressively adopting a singular local food item on the breakfast menu.

Dinner was the main event. It was tiring work to oversee the cooks in the large Brandon kitchen. Gan Chase however, was always there marching briskly up and down the kitchen to invading bubbling pots with her bony fingers. Straying only occasionally to poof an incorrectly poofed cushion.

The tenants where not served dinner unless dressed appropriately, in a suit jacket. A singular silencing eyebrow was raised when asked about the prospect of overheating.

The dinner menu consisted of the tenant’s choice of soup or fish (very salty, very comforting trout or Barracuda for those wishing to immerse themselves in the culinary that South Africa has to offer).

Despite significant popular demand, alcohol was not served at Brandon house. There did happen to be however, a thriving bottle store, just a short walk away, that Gan Chase would kindly recommend.