How to Move a Deceased Relative's Possessions from A to B

The relative who passed away was AZ, the youngest of my wife K’s two sisters. She died unexpectedly in London, leaving K and IZ to handle her affairs. It was known that AZ had property stored in Cape Town, and upon inquiry, it was discovered that the rental payment for the storage unit was six months overdue. Xtra Space politely informed us that, despite condolences, they would not release the contents of Unit O4 until they received R16000. After some telephonic negotiation, the amount was reduced first to 12 and finally to a rock-bottom 10, a take-it-or-leave-it offer.

Initially, we had to make an exploratory trip to determine what had been stored for several years at considerable expense. We picked up N and continued over the mountain to Stink Kaap. Xtra Space was situated in an industrial area near the airport and we found it without much difficulty. The woman in charge used a pair of bolt cutters to remove the overlock and allow us to open the tip-up door. The storage unit was half the size of a single garage and was filled with what appeared to be an assortment of worthless household items. However, upon opening the top drawer of a rusty filing cabinet, we discovered it was crammed with folders containing a multitude of black and white prints as well as sheaves of negatives. This was the treasure trove I had been hoping to unearth.

The next day, Thursday, K made the payment, and bright and early Friday morning, she was reversing the Venture into N and A’s driveway in Kleinbaai. The small trailer was hitched up to our vehicle, and they led the way in their ageing Land Rover to the trailer hire place in Gansbaai. An alarm bell went off in my head when we arrived and were informed that the sturdy double-axle trailer N had booked was unavailable, as its spare wheel had been stolen in the night. Instead, we would have to make do with a single-axle version that looked like it had originally been drawn by oxen.

Over Sir Lowry’s Pass, we went and on the other side, we stopped at the first filling station for a toilet break. While parked around the side, a car pulled up behind us, and a man got out in a hurry, looking both happy and excited. N seemed to recognise him, and they had a brief conversation before he waved goodbye and departed.

“Pike,” she said, and handed me the man’s card.

This is what makes life worth living. The miraculous appearance of one of Pike’s representatives, like a guardian angel come to check up on us, was both comical and reassuring. It was a reminder that we are not alone in this world, and that we should never give up hope because, even in the direst of situations, fate is capable of taking an unpredictable twist. Not that I believe in fate, or guardian angels, or any of that stuff, but I was genuinely delighted and amused that Pike had once again swooped down upon us.

“What did you tell him?”

“The usual. You’re not interested in selling, but if you change your mind, you will contact him.”

We arrived at Xtra Space at 11.30 and, after a delay while they checked to see if the EFT had gone through, we set to work loading up the Venture and the trailers. It was hard work, and would have taken twice as long without A. He is built like a sumo wrestler and is capable of feats of prodigious strength.

Long before the store stood empty, I had begun to feel waves of trepidation and in need of something to calm my nerves. By the time the last items were piled onto the big trailer, its springs were almost flat and the chassis cleared the wheels by no more than an inch. I couldn’t see how we were going to make it out of the gate and into the road, let alone go all the way to Gansbaai. To my amazement and growing sense of relief, however, we reached the N2 without incident and pressed on, the Land Rover leading the way.

It was after 2 on a hot Friday afternoon, and the traffic was already backing up as we approached Somerset West.

“This stop-start rubbish isn’t good for his clutch,” I said.

We made it through three sets of lights when, uh-oh, he began to drive in the emergency lane. We also pulled to the side and cars overtook us. The flow of traffic was beginning to speed up, which was encouraging, because it meant we would be able to get a run at the pass, if only the Rover’s clutch held out. Halfway up the first long incline we ground to a halt. Five minutes elapsed and then we heard him revving the engine, and again we were on our way. Round the hairpin bend we crawled before having to take another breather. We had started on the steepest stretch and cars were passing us at a steady rate. K was looking anxious, and she later said it was then that she contemplated offering up a prayer. Once a Catholic, always a blooming Catholic. Three hundred metres from the top of the pass we slowed to a walking pace and I was suddenly struck by the memory of a scene from John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. We were like the sharecropper migrants, piled up with our worldly goods struggling to reach the promised land in an overloaded jalopy.

This, I thought, is what it must feel like when making the final ascent on Mount Everest with the weather closing in. Would we make it, or would the expedition end in disaster?

The intrepid driver and his navigator coaxed the flagging old Rover up the last few metres and, to our immense joy and relief, we followed them over the summit and began descending into the land of milk and honey.

“Now he can coast for a bit and rest that clutch and clapped-out engine.”

“But not for long,” my wife said. “There’s that hill to climb after the dam.”

“Ah, that’s nothing.”

Like heck, it was nothing! Halfway up he was driving on the verge, slower and slower until all progress ceased. K turned off the engine and we sat listening to the traffic rushing by, and watched the long grass at the side of the road waving in the wind. After about five minutes N got out and came and stood at my open window.

“Looks like that’s it,” she said. “We’ll have to get a tow.”

It now emerged that it wasn’t just a diseased clutch that the aged vehicle suffered from. Why the engine kept losing power was because it was being starved of fuel.

“Dirt in the tank,’ N explained. “It’s the petrol we got from those idiots in Kleinbaai. We will have to call for a tow truck.”

She went back to A and after ten minutes returned. For R4500 a tow truck with flatbed would get the Land Rover and trailer to Gansbaai. K and I looked at each other in dismay. This was proving a very expensive operation, but there was no alternative. When the outfit arrived she would make the EFT. N gave them the go-ahead and said they promised to be with us in half an hour.

More than half an hour elapsed and she was on the phone again. Twenty minutes. N and A were standing beside us, anxiously watching the stream of cars coming up the hill. Still no tow truck, and then a car pulled up behind our little trailer.

“That blooming Pike again!”

She went and spoke to the man, and when he headed off he gave a cheerful toot-toot and a thumbs-up.

“He’s on his way back to Swellendam, and he’s oh-so-happy it’s not the Venture that’s giving trouble.”

A was looking grim, as if he needed to get into a brawl. He muttered something to N and stomped back to his troublesome work horse.

“He says he is not waiting any longer for those lying idiots.” We heard the engine start up. “I had better move it, or he’ll go off without me.”

From there on the Land Rover chugged along at a steady 80 all the way to Kleinbaai without stopping once. It was later agreed that the protracted wait had allowed the sediment in the tank to settle and thus the fuel supply had kept flowing uninterrupted.

As for the tow truck, K and I admitted to feeling a twinge of guilt at not having waited for them, but agreed it was not worth losing any sleep over, as these scavengers were notorious crooks and liars and did not deserve any sympathy. And R4500 was a rip-off we could do without, anyway.

We stopped at the OK in Gansbaai to buy a few groceries and it was well after six by the time we reached Kleinbaai. N and A were already unloading the contents of the trailer into their double garage. We slaved away for more than an hour emptying the trailers and the back of the Venture, and I again marvelled at A’s strength, shuddering at the thought of having had to accomplish this mission without his and N’s help.

Finally, we were done, and all that remained was for the big trailer to be returned to its owners, and for K and I to get back to Pearly Beach. It had been an exhausting and stressful day but, with a great deal of luck and help from our guardian angel, we had managed to move our deceased relative’s possessions from A to B without mishap. Hallelujah!

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