The Spiral House, by Claire Robertson

The Spiral House, by Claire Robertson. Random House Struik Umuzi. Cape Town, South Africa 2014. ISBN 9781415207529 / ISBN 978-1-4152-0752-9

In Claire Robertson’s majestic debut novel, The Spiral House, two stories of South Africa echo across centuries to expose that which binds us and sets us free.

Claire Robertson  

It is hours befor the house beyond this room will wake, but in the lordlingshouse and workshop that are the neighbouring buildings they keep kitchen hours, and now there's the creak of a hand cart as Melt hauls wood up the avenue. In the kitchen, a deep room lit at one end by the dripping pre-morning, a charred log settles at the hearth, adding its shuffle to the flatus leaking from a mound on the floor, to the burp of the beer barrel and sigh as meat rolls in brine. Morning: a rogue bantam (from Bantam) confirms it from a patch under the gooseberry bush at the end of the stairs; by the third note the cook is on her feet, piss pot in hand and scratching her breast and a kick for the rump under the table. Morning. No need to tell her twice. At the hearth, the kindling catches and the last log from the basket is balanced, ready to burn. A conserve pan picks up the yellow light and an orange torn toasts its back side. The cook uncovers dough in the baking trough and drives her fist into it to let out its sour breath. 'It was the black ship again,' she says. She is addressing a girl who has left her nest of sacking, splashed her face at the rain barrel beside the kitchen door and emptied the piss pot into its twin. 'Nay, Ma?' The cook's report on her dream and the girl's response to it are as much part of the pattern as the thump of Melt stacking wood next to the fire place. The dream is most often prophetic and frightening -black ships in full shivering sail or mountains rent. 'Ja, that black ship,' the cook says. She tucks dough in rounds and covers them again. A boy enters with a bucket of milk, splashing some as he moves around the table to the larder, earning a push on his shoulder on his way past her and a jar of small beer and yesterday's heel when he returns. Derde Susann. Third Susan. That is the cook's given name, though not by her parents. The men and boys, when they enter her kitchen, lift their hats; the women defer to her; she is chief among the household and on all this outpost estate only Melt would fetch more. Derde Susann collects chops from the cool room, closes the oven door on the loaves, swings a griddle over the fire, flicks the cat from her path. She moves smooth as a priest's boy, stoked by her own pity for her lot. Now she lifts her head: horses on the approach to the house. She slides more cuts to the griddle, tells the girl to gather extra bowls: guests to break fast. But the riders are not guests; they live here. They are the son and daughter of the house who left not three days ago for a fortnight at their cousins' farm, now suddenly returned, he in a sulk, she in tears, running to her mother's room like a child. Probably the mother does not shriek so loudly as to reach the kitchen with the sound, but unease travels to it and throughout the house. The torn bolts into the morning. [...]

This is an excerpt from the novel: The Spiral House, by Claire Robertson.

Title: The Spiral House
Author: Claire Robertson
Genre: Novel
Publisher: Random House Struik
Imprint: Umuzi
Cape Town, South Africa 2014
ISBN 9781415207529 / ISBN 978-1-4152-0752-9
Softcover, 14 x 21 cm, 400 pages