Cape Town - And Olive. There had to be Olive. She had been there only in the name on the sign outside the restaurant in Market Street. Schreiner Tea Room, painted in white on a Karoo green backdrop. But step inside and you left her behind you, testament to Olive Schreiner’s role in inspiring everything that Market Street has become.
Just a short walk away, around the corner in Cross Street, a young Schreiner is said to have paced the road in front of the house which is now the Schreiner Museum, muttering plots and themes and dialogue under her breath, then she’d dart inside to write, write, write.
A decade or more ago, in another old Karoo house in Calvinia in the Hantam Karoo, I was writing a play about her and Rhodes, and had taken to going out into the street outside the Boekehuis and unwittingly emulating this woman who was becoming my heroine, pacing, plotting, then darting inside to push the story ahead a little. I had no idea, then, that she had done just that, outside the old Cross Street house around the corner from what is now my new home.
Two people from different times, born 100 years apart but for one month. I was developing an empathy with a woman long dead, but who had left a spoor as to her nature and character. Not just in her written words but in her actions and attitudes as reported by others. In her life.
I could not leave her ghost to pace outside this place. She had to be beckoned in.
Some of the fruits of that writing, and of her much later output, is contained in the many books on and about Schreiner that I own for research purposes and because I love them. Her Story of an African Farm, her Thoughts on South Africa, her seminal Trooper Peter Halkett of Mashonaland. And her letters; millions and millions of letters.
Di and I made a decision. Schreiner Tea Room would broaden its scope. It would be Schreiner’s Bistro & Tea Room. And Schreiner would be celebrated within its walls so that the place would be an adjunct to the museum around the corner. It would be part of the Schreiner experience in Cradock, not just a tea room. She would be acknowledged here, and cherished.
There was (and remains) no budget to speak of. We’re not those people, the ones who buy a restaurant, gut the place, send in a bankrolled team to deck it out for a few mill, and spend five years desperately trying to recoup our investment. We’re a humbler variety. Start as simply as possible, take it a day at a time, work hard and watch to see what unfolds. But I knew I had to spend a few hundred on getting the old girl on to those walls. So I scanned the cover images of three of my Schreiner books, enlarged them at a very high resolution and got to work in PhotoShop. One was given a craquelure artwork effect. I brought out the rich red oxide and golden hues of another. And I enlivened the rather dull image of Schreiner on the cover of Richard Rive’s Letters by giving it an antique glow and softening the edges to lend it the allure of an image in a cameo brooch.
Enter a cherished colleague, Lesley Byram, who with her husband Rob has a framing business. I entrusted her to choose suitable frames, she texted me photos of a variety of them, we settled on three, and a week later they arrived at my Cape Town home.
And as I write, it’s only five days until we open the doors of the restaurant and hold our breath to see what happens. The menu is planned, the two dining rooms are set up with chairs and tables, a bookcase of lovely old books, walls clad with a miscellany of Boer and Brit and other colonial and vintage prints, random plates and copper pans, and Schreiner herself ostensibly to welcome you and see you off when you leave.
On Thursday night we had our newest, newest chums (to borrow from Keith Floyd), Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit, around for a sneak preview of what will be some of our staple starter nibbles – “Olive’s olives” (marinated kamalatas, and two olive tapenades), biltong pate, and a rocket pesto made with the masses of wild rocket growing in our back garden.
Setting out the food, as Chris photographed it against a backdrop of one of the Schreiner prints, with Di lighting candles to add yet more atmosphere to a scene, Julie remarked, “It’s a Schreiner shrine. It’s a Schrein.”
Later Chris persuaded me to get my guitar down from the top of the bedroom cupboard. My old Yamaha FG580, which I hadn’t played in a decade. He started to strum, and broke out in song. Julie joined in, we all joined in. Bluegrass and ballads, laughter and wine. Oh, and Willy Nelson. Always Willy Nelson, when Chris is there. I was wondering whether he shared my passion for David Bowie. I asked him. The look on his face made clear the unspoken reply. No Starman then. And who would ever know if there was Life On Mars. But he did start strumming Rocket Man, a song by Elton John, not Bowie.
Much later, giggling friends went home, bottles stood empty, we turned out the lights.
We have song, we have olives, and we have Olive. We have wild rocket, we even have a Rocket Man. We will laugh and we will sing in this place.
For the first time in many months, our souls felt good and nourished.
l See www.schreinertearoom.co.za.
Weekend Argus