I remember the day Hanna got sick. She cried all day, ever since that morning when Ma had to go and fetch Hanna at the shop because she wanted a tjoklit and tjips.

‘No,’ Mamma had said, ‘there’s no more.’

But Hanna didn’t believe her. While Ma and I were at the washing line she walked off to the shop and sat there crying like an owl for ‘tjokoloks’.

‘I want Gom!’ she screamed like a pig being slaughtered. ‘Gom buy sakkewa. Gom buy suckers now!’ Gom was what Hanna called my Uncle Jerome. She never said his name properly. He’s dead too, like Antie Lena, but I don’t think Hanna knew.

I was the only one that understood Hanna’s special language. Sometimes she would tell me how people laughed at her. ‘Hulle lag in my in.’ They laugh into me.

You couldn’t really cheer her up when she was sad. So when she cried we just let her. But she could be happy too. Sometimes she grabbed a broom and started singing. Then Ma would sing in soprano, I would chirp in with them and we would miela-miela-miela like a real choir. Then Hanna would laugh.

Hanna had been staying with us since Antie Lena’s funeral. Before Hanna got sick, Ma had been struggling to keep Hanna happy so that she wouldn’t notice Antie Lena passed away. Antie Lena was the closest thing to Hanna. Oorle Antie Lena reckoned that Hanna thought that Antie Lena was her mother. Antie Lena was the spitting image of Ouma. But our money was drying up and Ma told Antie Nettie, our next door neighbour, she couldn’t afford all the luxuries for Hanna anymore.

‘Why don’t you call Charmaine, Daleen. Forget about your pride. I mean she has Hanna’s money.’

‘No, I can’t, Nettie. The Lord will provide.’

‘Ai, it’s so tragic, kuintjie. I wish you well.’

Ma and Antie Charmaine had a fight at Antie Lena’s funeral. They did it in front of the grave, the flowers and all the people, even the Pastor. At first, they argued with their hands and tjie-tjie-tjied. Then Antie Charmaine said, ‘You owe me.’

‘Excuse me. Owe you?’ said Ma, her hands on her hips.

‘Yes. All those years my mother had to look after you. Or did you forget how your mother left you on our doorstep? If it wasn’t for my mother where would you be, huh?’

‘I would be here nonetheless, Charmaine. I am here by God’s grace and no one else’s. We are not kids anymore. You remember all those times I had to do your chores and those times you made me feel like a nothing. Well, those days are over!’

‘Well, Hanna is staying with you. It’s the least you can do for the family.’

‘For the family? For the family? Why don’t you tell the family how you sold your mother’s house from under her and how you gambled the money at the casino? Do you know how you broke your mother’s heart? She didn’t die of a heart attack. You killed her. Every day she prayed that you would become better. You don’t deserve her forgiveness. I will take Hanna, ma God slaap nie. The wheel will turn cousin. It will.’

Ma was so calm when she spoke to Antie Charmaine. Antie Charmaine looked like someone threw flour in her face. She couldn’t say a word and her eyes were big in her head. Everyone was whispering and then Antie Charmaine walked with her black upstairs-shoes to her golden car and drove off. We hadn’t heard from her since and Ma refused to ask her for money.

That morning, the morning Hanna got sick, there was nothing Ma could do to make Hanna leave that shop. In the end, she had to lie and say that Gom was looking for Hanna and if she didn’t come home Gom would take her to the Needle. That’s what Hanna thought was the name for the doctor. ‘Get up this instant, Hanna!’ I remember Ma shouting at Hanna.

‘A person would never think that Hanna was 56 years old already. She looks like a chubby child. Oh, and look, she is even talking her own little language,’ Nettie said, the day after the shop thing.

‘Yes,’ Ma replied, ‘she has been saying she wants a doll for a Christmas. Just ask her…’

Nettie looked at Hanna, who was sitting on the floor looking at the hem of her dress, ‘And what does Hanna want for Krismis?’

‘Pop. Ma koep. Mamma buy doll.’

‘Shame, doesn’t she know Antie Lena passed away?’

Ma shook her head, ‘I don’t want to break her heart.’

But then Hanna got sick again, Hanna couldn’t stop crying. She knew Antie Lena was not coming back.

‘Mamma in die kissie. Mamma weg.’ Mamma in the coffin. Mamma gone.

Ma just smoked, smoked, smoked, and trembled throughout Hanna’s howling. ‘She’s found out about Antie Lena,’ Ma told me when I asked her what was wrong with Hanna. In the end, Ma sent me to go and buy her chocolate at Andries Kafee. But now Hanna didn’t want it.

Hanna was sad for three weeks. Sometimes she would stop and just lay there. People from our street brought her cheese sandwiches and ‘stamp en stoot’ soup, but she didn’t want that either. Ma was struggling to make her eat. The doctor said maybe it’s her tummy, and gave her syrup.

She got thinner and thinner. She looked like an old woman and her face sunk in. She looked scary and her eyes looked like they wanted to fall out. Especially when she’s sleeping, she was born with eyelids that couldn’t close all the way.

‘Ma, is Hanna going to be okay?’ I asked one night after the doctor had left.

‘Yes, dear. Ma’s going to be with her all night. Go to sleep.’

The next morning when I got up the house was quiet. I walked to the kitchen and saw Nettie busy cooking porridge, stirring with the one hand and resting the other one on her side.

‘Where’s my Ma?’

‘Môre hond.’

I realized I was being rude. That was Nettie’s way of saying, ‘Don’t you greet?’

I ate as fast as I could because Nettie is a funny old woman. She always looks at me funny. Like she can see through me. I gulped up my porridge and ran outside to play with Tokolosie.

‘Djy, I was waiting for you the whole time, my broe,’ Tokolosie said excitedly. ‘Here was a taxi with big red lights with a machine inside it and they flied zoop down the street with your Ma and Hanna. What happened?’

I pulled up my shoulders, ‘Let’s play gutties.’

Ma came home only later on with an entjie in the mouth. She wouldn’t talk about Hanna. Wouldn’t say she was dead. She and Nettie were cleaning the whole day. Then the next day we had church in our house and then it was the funeral. Ma could just have told me Hanna was dead or maybe it was obvious, I don’t know, but she could have told me. I was angry about that but thought that maybe it was because of Wapie that she didn’t want to talk about death and dying.

There were a lot of people at the funeral, more than at Antie Lena’s even. The service was not so long. We had it at our house and then at the graveyard. Afterwards, there was cake and tea at the church hall. Ma was running up and down, serving people and welcoming and smiling. Ma was still talking to Nettie when Antie Charmaine walked in. She was wearing the same upstairs-shoes that she wore to Antie Lena’s funeral. This time, though, she had big sunglasses on too. The whole hall went quiet looking at her like they were somehow thinking that this would chase Antie Charmaine away. But she clicked clicked clicked towards Ma.

‘I am sorry Daleen. I–’

‘Let’s talk outside, Charmaine.’

I ran after them and Ma didn’t chase me away. We got into the golden car and the whole time Ma looked like she was inspecting Antie Charmaine. I don’t think Antie Charmaine noticed. We drove to the graveyard, to Hanna’s place. We got out and walked and walked towards the newly dug grave. When we were there, Antie Charmaine took out an envelope.

‘This is for you. Open it.’

Ma opened the envelope and read the rectangle paper. ‘This is so much money. I can’t take–’

‘Please take it. It was Hanna’s. Mamma left it for her in her last testament. I am sure you will need it.’

‘No. I can’t accept it. And don’t come here and assume what my family needs. We have enough to get by.’

‘Ag, you know I didn’t mean it like that, Daleen.’

‘Well, you know what Ouma always said: “Erf geld is swerf geld”.’

‘Well, what must I then do with the money?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe, Charmaine, you can buy Hanna and your Ma a nice tombstone.’

‘Maybe. We can talk about it later then?’

Ma was standing next to her and she wanted to put her arms around Antie Charmaine, but by accident she knocked her big sunglasses off her face and Antie Charmaine had a big blue poep eye. Charmaine quickly put her glasses back on and left Ma standing with her mouth hanging open.

‘Wait Charmaine! Come here! The cheque!’ Ma called after her, but she had already driven off. ‘Liewe aarde,’ Ma said with her hands over her mouth. ‘No wonder. Antie Lena could have said something instead of praying for Charmaine. If I had known…’ Ma fixed the flowers around Hanna’s cross and looked at me playing toktokkies in the sand.

‘Not a word to anyone about this. You hear me, meisiekint,’ Ma told me.

Too scared to talk, I just nodded my head fast.

‘Our business is our business.’ said Ma. ‘Come, let’s go home.’