The Glass Barrier by Packer Joy

Author:Packer, Joy [Packer, Joy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Literary, South Africa
Publisher: Corgi
Published: 1961-01-01T04:00:00+00:00

21. CELEBRATION

In most London stores the escalators are tucked away outside the showrooms, but in Antrobus & Beeford of Cape Town they move in a leisurely way through six floors and the heart of the store.

As I ascended, on the morning after my return, it occurred to me that never before had this moving-stair been put to better use as an “observation car”. Showrooms, springlike with glamorous displays, cunningly led the “traveller’s” eye on into the distance where he or she could glimpse vistas well worth exploring later. I recognized ideas that Simon had discussed with me in London. Good for him! He’d got away with it!

The Chairman’s office on the top floor was more like a luxurious study-library, with its prints of Cape Town in the early days, and its valuable first editions in the glass-enclosed book-cases that also contained the archives of the firm.

As children, Rima and I had often giggled over the faded catalogues of the past century when hour-glass ladies in flowered hats and feather boas were dressed from London by A. & B. and gentlemen bought their mole-skin trousers and fancy cravats from dashing young Charlie Beeford, himself the very soul of English—and colonial—elegance. We were amused too by faded press photographs of dignitaries of the new Boer Republics, and of Presidents and Generals in splendid but restrained uniforms, and their ladies in tasteful Victorian regalia all evidently supplied by the already well established Cape Town firm of Antrobus & Beeford.

“Study the history of your family business,” Uncle Gideon used to tell us, “and you’ll learn a great deal about the history of your country over the past hundred and fifty years.”

He was standing at the tall window when I went in. As I joined him he indicated the new matchbox buildings shooting up all along the foreshore. Ugly angular skyscrapers.

“We’re well placed here, at the foot of Adderley Street,” he remarked. “With all that foreshore reclamation going on we’ll soon find ourselves in the new city centre.”

“Since I’ve been away—only two years—everything has changed. I hate these office blocks.”

“They’re graceless and impersonal, but they’re twentieth century.

Wouldn’t you love to turn back the clock for twenty-four hours? Back to three centuries ago when there was nothing down there except the seashore and the beginnings of the old Castle-fortress. And higher up the mountain—where Rosevale is today—Governor Van Riebeeck was planting out his market-gardens to supply the Dutch East Indiamen with fresh fruit and vegetables.”

“It must have been paradise to the sailors to come ashore in this lovely place after months at sea. How brave they were—those early mariners!”

“They lived in adventurous times. Trade opened up the world, Maxie. Trading bases came first, and colonies followed. When there are no more colonies there’ll still be empires of commerce. That’s the picture of the future.” He smiled and put his bony hand on my shoulder. “Let’s not get on to my pet subject. We’ll let the past and future take care of themselves for the moment and stick to the present.

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