Everybody’s favourite agony aunt and crime fighter Tannie Maria needs some counselling advice of her own. Lingering troubles from a previous marriage still sit heavy on her, while fresh worries about Slimkat, a local man whose fight for his people’s land threatens his life, keep her up at night. Tannie Maria seeks out counsellor, jokily known to all as “the satanic mechanic”. Straight out of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and from hot-as-hell Hotazel, Ricus fixes both cars and people. Blending an intriguing mystery with characters as lovable as the setting of the rural Klein Karoo, this book is Sally Andrew’s delightful, warm-hearted sequel to Recipes for Love and Murder.
“THE NEXT MORNING, Jessie and I worked at our desks while Hattie was at the bank. I was getting through my pile of letters.
Dear Tannie Maria,
My boyfriend wants to have sex with me, but I don’t know if I’m ready. I am seventeen, and I really smaak him. It’s just that emotionally I don’t think I’m ready. But I am scared he will leave me if I don’t.
What should I do?
Janine
I didn’t feel ready to answer that letter, so I picked up the next one. I hadn’t seen Henk since Saturday. He was busy with work, he said. I helped myself to another rusk and offered the tin to Jessie.
‘He’s coming here,’ said Jessie, taking a rusk and brushing crumbs off her desk. ‘Slimkat. He said he and his cousin were dropping someone off nearby. They’re going to pop in.’
We heard a car backfiring as it parked in Eland Street.
‘That’s probably them now.’ She got up and stood at the door, and I put on the kettle.
I heard Slimkat before I saw him, his voice quiet but strong as he spoke to Jessie. She led him into the office, and he introduced his cousin, Ystervark. Then he shook my hand.
‘This is my colleague, Tannie Maria,’ said Jessie. ‘She does the “Love Advice and Recipe Column”.’
His hand was warm and dry, but I hardly felt it, because it was his eyes that filled me with feeling. They were big and black, like a kudu’s, and they looked right into me. It was very strange …
I felt like he could see me. Really see me. Not only my body but all of me. It was as if my eyes were windows without curtains, and he could just look inside. He saw everything. Including the things I kept hidden, even from myself.
I looked away.
‘Coffee?’ I offered, fiddling with the cups.
‘Rooibos tea?’ he asked.
I nodded.
‘Black,’ he said, ‘but with lots of sugar for Yster.’
Ystervark was looking at all the pouches on Jessie’s belt and frowning. Like Slimkat, he was a small man, but while Slimkat was relaxed, Yster’s whole body was tense. His hands were tight fists, and I recognised him from the newspaper photograph. Ready to fight. Ready to kill, maybe. He looked at Slimkat, then at Jessie’s belt and at Slimkat again.
‘Sorry,’ said Slimkat. ‘We don’t mean to be rude. But could you show us what you are carrying on your belt? We’ve had some … incidents, and Ystervark likes to be careful.’
‘Sure,’ said Jessie, and emptied all the things from her pouches onto her desk. They made quite a pile and included her camera, notebook, pen, phone, torch, string, knife and pepper spray.
Ystervark grabbed the spray and the knife and looked at Slimkat as if to say, ‘I told you so.’
‘Sorry,’ Slimkat said again. ‘He’ll give them back when we go. We can’t stay long.’
“You are wrong. The land does not belong to us. We belong to the land.”
Jessie set up two chairs for the visitors, but Ystervark stood at the office door. Then he walked towards the street and back again, with the knife and the pepper spray in his hands. He put them in his pockets when I handed him his tea and rusk. I gave the others their hot drinks and beskuit too.
‘Would you like me to go?’ I asked Jessie.
‘No,’ said Slimkat. ‘Stay,’ and he fixed me with those eyes again.
I spilt my coffee on my desk. I rescued the letters, but the coffee got all over last week’s Gazette.
Jessie picked up her notebook. ‘I know you don’t like to sing your own praises,’ she said, ‘but you must be feeling good about the victory over big business. Diamond miners and agribusiness are used to getting their way. Yet you won the fight.’
‘I am sad,’ said Slimkat. ‘It was not right to fight.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Jessie. ‘It belongs to you, that land. Your ancestors have lived there for tens of thousands of years. You could not just let the companies steal it from you.’
‘No,’ said Slimkat. ‘You are wrong. The land does not belong to us. We belong to the land.’
Jessie blinked, and her mouth opened and closed. It was not often that I saw Jessie without words.
She found them again. ‘But surely,’ she said, ‘if you do not fight, then injustice will be done. Again and again.’
‘That is true,’ he said. ‘Some people like to fight.’ He took a sip of his tea and glanced at his cousin, who stood at the door with his back to us. ‘I do not. Fighting can make you bitter. But sometimes it must be done. If you have to fight, then you must do so with soft hands and a heart full of forgiveness.’
He dipped his rusk into his tea and took a bite. Then he smiled and looked at me.
I mopped at the Gazette with a napkin. There was a brown stain over the pink advert offering relationship help.
‘I hear there have been death threats?’ Jessie said.
Slimkat nodded and chewed on his rusk.
‘Who do you think is responsible?’ she asked. ‘Agribeest cattle business? Hardcore diamond company?’
Slimkat waved his hand as if pushing smoke aside. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Or people who are jealous. It doesn’t matter.’
‘What do you mean it doesn’t matter? Surely it will matter if you are killed?’
Slimkat smiled. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Yster wants me to hide away. He says that the buck that grazes in the shadows does not land on the coals. But I believe my time will come when it comes. I am not going to hide from the sun.’
Ystervark’s back twitched. He put his cup down on the ground and took out the pepper spray.
‘My life is a very small thing,’ said Slimkat. ‘It is not like the life of a river, or the earth, or the stars. It does not matter very much if I die.’
Maybe he was right, but I wanted to say to him, ‘Don’t be crazy; of course it matters.’ But it wasn’t my place to say that. Instead I wrote down the phone number from the coffee-stained advert in the Gazette.”
Extracted from Tannie Maria & the Satanic Mechanic, out now.
YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY
Extract: Recipes for Love and Murder by Sally Andrew