It’s Wednesday morning and Lambert’s been shouting and screaming ever since sunrise. He wants everything fixed, now, on the double. How can they let the house look like a pigsty when the NPs are coming, he shouts at them from the den at the back. What will the NPs think? What will they think of the curtain that’s still hanging over the pelmet? And the postbox that Treppie went and fetched off the street and then just chucked back on to the lawn, still full of dents, with its silver paint coming off.
After he blacked out, he was flat on his back for a long time. On his mattress. That much he figured out. The whole of Sunday, and all of Monday too, ’cause it was Tuesday morning before he could sit up straight again. Then he wanted Coke. Clean Coke. Coke always brings him round after a fit. They say everything goes better with Coke, and that’s what he says, too.
He told his mother to buy him a See and a Scope at the café in Thornton. They sell Sees there. The shop at the bottom of Toby Street just sells kaffir rubbish. And then on Tuesday night he ate half a loaf of white bread with Sunshine D, golden syrup and polony. Treppie came into the den and said he shouldn’t eat so much white bread, ’cause he was still going to have to fit into his leathers before his birthday, wink-wink.
He knows Treppie’s taught him a lot, and he owes him, but he can’t fucken take it when Treppie winks at him like that.
He got up earlier this morning to see if his mother was hanging up the curtain by those hooks that go into the rings on the railing, but then his ears started zinging, so he came and lay down on his bed again. When he’s had a fit, Coke helps for his stomach, but it doesn’t stop the zinging in his ears.
Here comes Treppie now, walking down the passage. He knows it’s Treppie ’cause Treppie doesn’t drag his feet like his mother, and his one foot doesn’t sound louder than the other, like Pop’s. Treppie walks like a cat. You could even say Treppie creeps up on you. Don’t creep up on me like that, he always says, ’cause it feels like Treppie’s peeping into his head when he stands so close to him, peeping at everything he’s fucken thinking, long before he even realises Treppie’s there.
‘What you reading there, old boy?’ Treppie asks. He’s leaning against the inside door of the den. He says ‘old boy’ with a twist in his voice, like what he really means is ‘old dickface’.
Treppie says he, Lambert, has the longest, thickest dick he’s seen in his entire life. He doesn’t see how Treppie can know that, ’cause he’s never been naked in front of him. But when he tells Treppie this, Treppie says he’s so fucken far gone he doesn’t even know when he’s starkers and when he’s wearing clothes. Treppie talks a lot of crap. If Treppie knows how big his dick is, it must be ’cause his pants fall down when he fits. His mother pushes washing pegs between his teeth to stop him from biting off his tongue. Sometimes when he wakes up his pants are gone. Then he sees them hanging up on the line outside. His mother says he pisses in his pants when he fits. How’s he fucken supposed to help it? She can be glad he doesn’t shit in his pants, too.
‘I said, what you reading there, old boy?’
‘Nothing.’ He doesn’t want to talk to Treppie. He can feel he’s still not a hundred per cent, and when he’s not a hundred per cent he can’t handle trouble. If he goes off the rails when he’s not a hundred per cent, then he really fucks out. Then he fucks out in a big way.
‘Such bad manners! A person can’t even ask what you’re reading.’ Treppie creeps up on him and snatches the pamphlet from his hands. ‘So, let’s have a look.’ Treppie knows exactly what it is he’s reading, but now he wants to put on a whole fucken show again.
‘Jesus, this fancy print is so skew, not even a dog can read it. What? “The constitutional protection of minorities. Point one: language and culture”. Hell, Lambert, but this is high falutin’ stuff you’re reading here, old boy. What “minorities” do they mean now?’
Treppie’s acting stupid. Lambert knows this game; it’s something Treppie does a lot, just to torment him. He knows he must just not say anything. If he does, then Treppie takes whatever he says and drop-kicks it up into the blue sky, to hell and back, and then he asks: Where was I now? Then he acts like he’s also looking for the answer. There’s just no end to him. His mother’s right. Treppie’s a fucken devil, but not a straight one; he’s a devil with a twist, a twisted devil with a twitch in the shoulder. It’s a nervous tick, as he himself says.
‘Is that postbox fixed yet?’ he asks Treppie. He knows he must try and get out of this thing now. He gets up on his elbow, but his ears are still zinging. When he closes his eyes, he sees green. His tongue still feels lame. Down in his back too. Lame.
‘Hey? I asked if you fixed the postbox yet.’
‘What for?’ says Treppie.
‘The NPs. They’re coming today.’ He knows what he just said must sound very dumb. Treppie always gives the NP hell when they come here. Why should he give a shit about the postbox?
‘So what?’ Treppie says.
‘Pop!’ he shouts. ‘Pop!’ Pop always helps him out with Treppie. But these days Pop’s help isn’t worth much. He’s tired. So he, Lambert, has to fend for himself. Here comes Pop now, down the passage. First the hard foot, then the soft foot. ‘Click-clack, click-clack’ go the blocks as he walks.
‘Pop, take Treppie with you to get the welder and the tools, and go fix up the postbox. That metal base is still okay.’
Pop doesn’t say anything. He traipses around the room, looking for the welder.
‘Hell, brother, you only let him order you around, hey!’ says Treppie, twisting the words hard when he says ‘brother’.
‘Come now, Treppie,’ says Pop. ‘Cut it out, man.’ He says it softly. He can’t talk hard any more. He’s holding Treppie by the sleeve, but Treppie jerks his arm loose.
‘Listen to me, brother, don’t come in here and push me around. I’m talking to old Lambert here. We’re talking about “minorities” – ja, a minor past, a minor present and a very minor future. We’re talking fucken deep stuff here, man. First the NP wastes time like it’s for Africa, and now they’re trying to make it a “minor” thing. Also for Africa. Beats me. Too fucken deep for me. But if you’re as deep in the shit as old Lambert here,’ says Treppie, kicking Lambert’s scrap against the door, ‘then a person has to think very deep …’
‘Treppie,’ Pop says, ‘give it a break now, man.’
‘Old Lambert, here,’ Treppie says, like he’s explaining something completely new to Pop, ‘old Lambert’s someone who always does his homework, you see. He’s scared he’ll have nothing to say the next time he sees that piece with the bare shoulders, that cute one from the varsity, the Rôndse Ôfrikônse Univarsity. So now he’s swotting up these fancy pamphlets.’
Treppie, he thinks, is just like a dungfly buzzing bzzt, bzzt, against a window. But with a real fly, at least you can open a window and chase the bugger out. You don’t even have to touch the blarry thing.
‘Pop, tell Treppie he must fuck off from here, or there’s going to be trouble.’ Pop lifts up his hand, but then he drops it again. He opens his mouth, but then he closes it again.
‘Ai,’ he says. ‘Ai, God help us.’
‘Don’t worry, Pop,’ Treppie says. ‘Everything’s okay. I’m just having a bit of fun with old Lambert. Come,’ he says, ‘be a sport. Come and join us.’
He grabs Pop by the shirt and quickly pulls him in through the den’s door. But Pop’s foot catches and he stumbles. Treppie grabs him from behind, by his belt, and quickly pulls him up again.
‘Oh boy,’ Treppie says. ‘Not so steady any more, or what am I saying, hey, Pop?’
When Treppie gets like this, it’s like he’s changing gear. All you hear are the revs, getting higher and higher by the second.
Treppie pulls up two crates. They’re both full of empty one-litre Coke bottles. Then he turns the crates over with one hand, crashing the bottles on to the den’s cement floor. Lambert can’t see how many bottles are broken.
‘Those are my Coke bottles, Treppie. Ninety-one cents each,’ he says, but not too loud.
He pushes himself up straight, sitting against the wall. He checks to see where his shoes are, in case he has to make a run for it over the broken glass.
‘So, Lambert,’ Treppie says, seating himself on one of the crates. He pulls Pop by his sleeve. Pop sinks slowly on to the other crate, wiping his nose with his sleeve as he sits down.
‘So, what are the issues supposed to be now, old boy? What’s this election all about, anyway? Come, explain to us a little now.’
‘Ag no, man,’ Lambert says. He says it carefully and softly. He still doesn’t feel right. He’s just going to have to kick Treppie’s questions right out of touch. Carefully he says: ‘Here. Read for yourself.’ He passes Treppie a bunch of pamphlets. Treppie knocks them out of his hand. They fall on to the floor.
‘Ag, sorry about that, man, didn’t mean it,’ Treppie says. ‘Just a little accident.’ He kicks the pamphlets away with his feet. Pop bends over and picks them up. Then he puts them down on the bottom end of Lambert’s mattress, where Treppie can’t reach.
‘Come, what can you tell us, Lambert? Things are looking a bit mixed up, aren’t they?’
Treppie looks around the den, first at the floor, which is full of Flossie’s engine parts – loose spanners, hubcaps, pieces of old silencer and rusted exhaust pipe. Then he looks up at the things hanging from the ceiling. ‘One, two, three, four, five, six,’ he counts, looking at the strips of flypaper. ‘Such a bother, these flies, hey,’ he says. ‘Looks like they just love messy places like this.’
Now he’s looking at the roll of second-hand razor-wire. ‘It will stop the burglar, but it won’t keep the fits out,’ he says.
And then he says, ‘Tsk-tsk-tsk, shame,’ as he sees the old Austin’s radiator-grid. The one Pop gave Lambert to hang up in his den, for old time’s sake.
Treppie’s full of sights. Now he’s looking at the Tuxedo Tyres calendars, the ones they go fetch every year on Ontdekkers. For the pin-ups. They’re lined up next to each other on the walls of the den, just under the ceiling, so that he, Lambert, can pick and choose when he’s lying down on the bed. They’re all there, from 1971 onwards.
But Treppie doesn’t want to pick and choose, he wants to fuck around. He stiffens his neck and he turns his head, inch by inch, making little click-sounds, just like the fan’s head when it gets stuck. ‘Click-click,’ he says, as he looks at the calendars, one by one.
All the calendars are the same. There’s a fat lorry tyre on top of each of them, with TUXEDO stencilled on its grip. A girl in a bikini sits under all the tyres. The only part of her body you can see is from her head to her stomach, straight from the front, against a bright blue background. The girls all look the same, except for the hair and the colour of their bikinis.
‘Tits and tyres, tits and tyres, the chickens are back in the coop and they’re all a bunch of liars,’ Treppie says, shaking loose his neck.
Pop wants to stand up, but Treppie stops him with a hand on his shoulder. Pop says nothing. He stays on his seat. There’s that drop hanging from the tip of his nose again.
Treppie looks at the Fuchs and the Tedelex standing open at the back of the room. Boxes and magazines are stacked on top of them, right up to the roof. They’re full of black fingermarks on the inside, and their seals are rotten. Lambert’s half-loaf of white and a tub of margarine lie at the bottom of the one, and there’s a half-full bottle of Coke in the other one’s door.
Treppie shifts his crate and leans forward. He’s looking at the paintings on the wall. Lambert follows Treppie’s eyes, looking everywhere he looks. When Treppie looks at his den like this, it feels like a strange place. Treppie must stop this now.
But Treppie looks like he’s seeing everything for the first time. South Africa’s outline, almost completely faded by now. Koki’s fade like that. Their house, with the postbox in front, the carport with the Volksie underneath; the dotted line going upwards; all the things on the lawn and in the sky. Treppie frowns, shaking his head.
‘Fucken mix-up! What’s that?’ He points to the wall. It’s a drawing with writing and arrows.
‘It’s been there for a long time,’ Lambert says. ‘It’s how a fridge works.’ He clears his throat. It’s hurting from trying to keep his voice even. ‘You drew it there yourself, when we started working here in the yard.’
‘So you know how a fridge works, hey, Lambert?’ says Treppie. ‘Then you should also know how the NP works. Compressor: warm. Evaporator: cold. Thick gas, thin gas, round and round: prrrr, choory-choory-chip: off.’ He smacks both his hands on his legs, looking serious now.
‘Come now, Lambert, we don’t have all morning. What are the vital issues in this election?’
‘Well,’ Lambert says, ‘it’s the constitution, it’s the people who’re going to write the new constitution. We have to vote for them.’
‘And?’ Treppie’s eyes are glittering.
‘Well, um,’ Lambert looks at Pop. Pop must help him now. ‘We’ve always stuck with the NP—’
‘Oh yes?’ Treppie says quickly. He waves at the flies. ‘We’ve also stuck with Sunlight. That’s how you keep the flies out, you wash yourself with Sunlight soap. Your arse and your head and your floor and your bed, the whole lot, whiter than snow.’
Lambert tries to straighten up. This is going too far now. If Treppie wants him, then he’s going to get him. But his head’s zinging. Pop signals: stop it now. He says please. Lambert shuts his eyes. Maybe that’ll help his head a bit. Pop’s voice is so soft, all Lambert hears is ‘ease’. Then it’s Treppie again. He’s talking to Pop. Treppie sounds like a preacher.
‘If you ask me, Pop, the National Party are a filthy lot. What’s more, they’re also confused and they’re getting more confused by the day. One great fucken scrapyard, if you ask me. Now they say they’re going to get their house in order, again. How, I ask you? How? Where will they begin? They must first get their fingers out of their backsides. That’s what, and then wash them with Sunlight. That’s all I can say, Pop. That’s the hard reality. Old Lambert here, he knows very well what I’m talking about. He reads those pamphlets. And he’s not stupid, not by a long shot.’
Lambert opens his eyes. The only thing you can do here is play along. ‘At least they’ve stuck to one thing from beginning to end. It’s like a golden thread,’ he says.
‘Oh yes?’ Treppie says. ‘Now that sounds better. What golden thread?’
Lambert leans forward so he can get his pamphlets. Pop helps him, pushing them closer.
‘Wait, let me read it.’ He looks through the pamphlets till he finds the right one. Then he looks up. Pop stares down at the floor. Treppie looks him straight in the face. He reads.
‘“The National Party of today is no longer the National Party of yesterday, but—”’
‘Fuck but!’ Treppie says, shooting up like a jack-in-the-box and grabbing the pamphlet out of his hands. ‘It’s not even the same party you voted Yes for that last time. Remember, when you could still fit into your smart clothes, your black charcoal pants with the shiny leather belt, and those boots with no laces. What did it say again on the label of those pants? Smart pants, those!’
Treppie gets up and walks carefully over the broken glass to the steel cabinet against the wall. He tries to shake open the doors, but they’re locked. ‘Quickly, give me the keys so I can see what that label says.’
‘Boom!’ Treppie slams his hand against the steel door. Pop jumps.
‘Man About Town! That’s it. Now I remember. Man About Town! That’s what it says on the label. I still remember. The coolie at the Plaza showed us the label, at the back, on the inside.’
‘Can I carry on now?’ Lambert asks. Talking politics is bad, but not as bad as talking about his pants. It’s not his fault he got so fat. It’s the pills.
‘“But …”’ Lambert reads, ‘“there’s a golden thread that runs from the early years of the National Party right through until today.”’
‘Stuff and nonsense!’ Treppie says. He sits on his crate again.
‘“Our first priority remains our own, our own minority, our own language and culture, and our own Christian faith.”’ He reads in stops and starts, the words swimming in front of his eyes.
‘And our own postbox!’ Treppie shouts.
Lambert raises his hand for silence. He reads: ‘“That’s what we call the protection of minority rights. All minorities. So that there can be no domination by a black majority …”’
‘So, do you buy that story, Lambert?’ Treppie asks.
‘Well, um, to an extent,’ Lambert says.
‘To an extent! You sound just like that pamphlet, old boy.’
‘Well, if things don’t work out then we’ve at least got a plan!’ Lambert says. ‘Remember what you said, then we take Molletjie and we load the petrol into the front, and on the roof-rack, and in the dicky, and then we go, due north. All of us, even Gerty and Toby. To Zimbabwe or Kenya. Where you can still live like a white man. With lots of kaffirboys and-girls to order around, just as we please! They’re cheaper there!’
Treppie looks at him. He looks at Treppie. Why’s Treppie looking at him like this now?
Treppie was after all the one who thought up the plan, one day when he, Lambert, was lying here at the back, when he couldn’t pull himself together after a fit, and all he could do was pull his wire, but even that didn’t want to work any more. When his mother was sick in the hospital. From asthma. At least that’s what he thought. But then Treppie said it was a nervous breakdown ’cause he had fits all the time, ’cause there was nothing for him to do and he was wearing his mother out. And then Treppie came and sat here on a crate and said he’d found just the thing to keep him busy: the Great North Plan for when the emergency came. Yes, they must start storing up petrol, Treppie said, ’cause you never knew. He, Lambert, must dig a cellar under his den to store up petrol, ’cause petrol couldn’t be stored above ground, at least not here at the Benades’; there were too many sparks flying around when they started welding. Treppie said the silver bags inside wine boxes were the best for storing petrol. They took up the least space, and you could fold them up when you were finished, and then fill them up again later. He remembers thinking it was a real stroke of genius. Treppie’s got a lot of plans. But that’s not all he’s got a lot of and he mustn’t come and be a nuisance now. He, Lambert, didn’t go scratching around rubbish dumps just for nothing. On Monday nights, when people put out their rubbish, he walked up and down the streets so he could check those rubbish bags for wine boxes. Then he’d pull out the silver bags and throw back the boxes. By the time he got home he was stinking of wine and old rubbish. Sometimes people heard the scratching at their gates, and a few times they even came out with their sjamboks and their catties, ’cause they thought it was dogs eating their rubbish. Then they’d start shooting without even taking a good look to see who it was. One night a man with a pellet gun hit him a shot in the backside as he stood there scratching around. He hadn’t even seen the man. And he didn’t go looking for him, either, ’cause then he’d have to please explain what he was doing there in the rubbish. He couldn’t very well go and tell other people about their plan, ’cause then they’d also start doing it, and then the petrol would run out too quickly. It’s true what Treppie says, when there’s trouble in the country it’s always petrol that runs out first. Treppie said he, Lambert, could learn from the NP government – every time they got the country into trouble, they just stashed away more petrol. Treppie’s like that when he talks politics. Actually when he talks anything. You never know if he means something’s good or bad. And if you ask him, he says he’s not interested in those two words, things are what they are and that’s all there is to it.
Treppie wasn’t even sorry for him when he got that pellet in his backside. He just stood there and laughed, holding the torch so his mother and Pop could get the little bullet out with a tweezer and a needle. Fuck, that was sore! He must have drunk a whole bottle of Klipdrift, lying there in the lounge on the loose blocks, with his backside up in the air.
‘Lambert,’ says Treppie, shifting a little closer. ‘What if she wants to come with us …’
‘Who you talking about?’ Lambert asks. Pop looks down at the floor. Like he knows what’s coming. Well, Lambert thinks, then Pop must know more than he does.
‘Your girl, of course. The one we’ve ordered for your birthday.’
‘You must be joking,’ Lambert says, but he actually likes the idea. The thought never crossed his mind that she might want to come too.
‘Yes, man, maybe she’ll like you so much she’ll want to come with us. Just after the election, when the shit starts flying.’
‘But, um, Molletjie … there won’t be enough space.’
‘She can sit on your lap, man. And when you get tired …’ wink-wink, ‘then she can sit in front for a while, then we put Pop on her lap. Look at him, he’s like a feather, man, he’s ready for take-off.’ Treppie lifts one of Pop’s thin little arms and then drops it again.
‘Hell’s bells, that’ll be something, hey,’ Lambert says. He sits a little more upright on his mattress.
‘Yes, man, it’ll be fun. Just there after Beit Bridge, after we cross the border, we can buy a Coke and chuck some Klipdrift in and chill out a bit. Then you and her can go take a walk in the bushes.’ Wink-wink.
Pop shakes his head. ‘Treppie,’ he says. ‘Treppie.’
‘Ja, Pop, man, I think she will. What do you think? You also saw her, man!’ He pumps Pop in the ribs. ‘Come, Pop, let’s show Lambert how that girl danced in the disco there in Smit Street. You see, Lambert, it’s like a display cabinet where all the girls stand and do their thing on a little dance floor, with a strobe-light and nice sexy music.’
Treppie gets up. He pulls Pop up too. He pushes out his hips and wiggles his shoulders.
‘Come now, Pop, dance a little so Lambert can get the idea!’
Pop sways, first this way, then that. As if he wants to turn away from something. He stares at Lambert with a dull look. Like he’s trying to look in somewhere where it’s closed and dark.
‘You see, we went to check them out a bit. You could say we went window shopping, me and Pop, when we went to look for her. Hey, Pop? So she can prepare herself for you!’
Treppie nudges Pop and winks at Lambert. ‘Cleopatra’s Queens. Cater for everything. Do anything you ask. For anyone. Discretion guaranteed. House-calls included. Cheapest rate is at the customer’s house. Otherwise you have to rent a room, and pay for room service, towels, sheets, pillows. That kind of thing.’
Treppie lights up a cigarette and blows out smoke. He looks at Lambert through squinted eyes.
‘It wasn’t exactly easy to choose. Me and Pop stood there, trying to pick one out. Then I saw a tall one, a blonde, and I thought, that’s her! That’s Lambert’s girl! But Pop said no, Lambert doesn’t like long and thin, he likes short and fat. Then Pop pointed, there, look at that nice round one, on that side. Not so, Pop? And then I said, don’t point, Pop, it’s bad manners.’
Treppie laughs, slapping Pop so hard he almost falls off his crate.
Pop says nothing.
Treppie clears his throat. ‘Well now, the one we chose for you in the end … should we tell him, Pop? Come on, Pop, be a sport, man …’
‘Pop?’ says Lambert.
‘Ag, you know him. He’s too old. He just wants to sleep. He’s too old for this kind of thing. Farmed out, dried up. A dead shoot. Forget him, man. Now where was I …’
Pop stands up. He shuffles towards the door. Then he stops and shuffles around in a half-circle facing them again. He looks at Treppie and Lambert sitting with their heads together. Lambert’s swung his legs off the mattress and he’s smoking one of Treppie’s cigarettes. He can see Pop wants to say something, but then he says nothing. He just turns around and shuffles out of the room. ‘Click-clack’ he goes over the loose blocks, down the passage.
‘So, how’ll you like it if she comes with us, hey, Lambert?’
‘Well, it depends if she wants to. If she’s game.’
‘I promise you, she’s game for anything.’
‘But if she comes with us she won’t have a job any more.’
‘No, but then she’ll have you, don’t you see?’ says Treppie, laughing out of the back of his throat. Suddenly he stops laughing and looks dead serious again. His eyes are shining.
‘But, Lambert, old boy, I need to talk to you seriously now. You’ve got to do something about your fat stomach,’ he says, prodding at Lambert’s belly. ‘And your bum too,’ he says, reaching for Lambert’s backside.
Lambert pushes away his hand.
‘Oh my,’ says Treppie, looking at Lambert’s crotch. ‘Looks like you really want that floozy, my friend, like you really want her bad. Look at your dick standing to attention, just from a little talk. So, you want her to leave her job and come with us, right?’
Treppie gets up from the crate. Now he’s all businesslike.
‘Come, let’s look at your clothes, then, old boy. Look, you’ve got those boxer shorts and another pair, and three T-shirts. That’s all I ever see you wearing. A man can’t go to the North looking like that. Especially not with a woman at his side. You’re going to have to get back into your smart clothes. Your Man About Towns.’ Treppie sways his hips.
‘Look, you’re welcome to borrow a shirt from me, but you see how thin I am. Like a plank.’ He slaps his stomach. ‘And then there’s the mock leather jacket you got for your twenty-first. Come open here, man!’ Treppie pulls at the doors of the steel cabinet. ‘Come, come open up a bit here!’
‘Just leave me alone!’ says Lambert.
‘Well, Lambert, please yourself, but if you ask me what’s the most important issue in this election, then I’d say it’s the fact that your birthday is the day before we vote. And that you’re turning forty. And that we’ve been saving up out of Pop’s pension and my salary for a whole year to pay for a girl. Just for you, alone, for a whole night. So we can get some peace and quiet in this house. Especially your mother. She’s getting old. She’s taking strain. It’s your only chance, man. And now you want to go and fuck it up with white bread and polony. And Coke. It’s a bladdy shame, if you ask me. Come now, come open this cabinet for me.’
‘Just leave me alone!’ Lambert says. He swings his legs back on to the bed and gathers up his pamphlets. Treppie mustn’t start about his mother now. What does he know, in any case?
‘That stuff you’re reading there. Pure rubbish. You’re still going to see all that talk explode in your face.’
‘Yes, but we’ve still got a plan! We’re going to bugger off from here!’ Lambert says.
Treppie turns around slowly, away from the cabinet. He walks towards Lambert. Then he stands in front of him, hands at his sides, staring.
‘Stupid fucken fit-catcher,’ he says. ‘You really do believe all that shit, don’t you?’
Lambert looks up quickly. More because of the way Treppie says it than because of what he says.
‘Huh,’ he says. ‘Huh,’ and he feels his jaw dropping.
‘It’s a lot of shit, that,’ Treppie says. ‘It’s just a lot of shit that I told you. Do you really think a Volksie with a rusted chassis, with no shocks to speak of, a clutch as thin as tin-foil, gears that keep popping out when you ride from here to Ponta do Sol … do you really think she’ll take the four of us, let alone the tons of crap in your head about women, more than two blocks out of Triomf? You really think that? You’re fucken mad, man!’
‘But you said, you said so yourself …’ Lambert wants to kick himself. Treppie’s got him by the balls again.
‘Yes,’ says Treppie. His eyes are shooting sparks now. ‘I know I thought that plan up. You want to know why? You really want to know why? It was to get you out of the way. To get you out from under our feet, out of the house so we could get some peace and quiet in this place. That’s why. So you could bladdy shuddup and dig a hole, a nice hard hole full of pipes and bricks from the kaffirs. So you’d be so tired at night that you’d just fall on to your arse on your mattress and stay there, so you wouldn’t bother anyone. So you’d stop giving us a hard time. So you could spend your days on rubbish heaps and scratch around like a bladdy mad thing. So I can get some rest for my soul. Rest, I say. Mol and Pop too. If we ever vote for a party, it will be for one that locks up your sort in a madhouse, a party that chains you to a hard little bed with iron wheels and then plugs up your mouth.’
Treppie flicks his cigarette butt on to the floor and steps on it with a hard twist of his shoe. His shoulder twitches wildly, once.
‘And when they unstrap your hands, once a month, you’ll be allowed to colour in those pictures of peace doves, the ones Mol and Pop bring, tiptoeing into your room ’cause they’re scared you’ll murder them if you wake up.’
‘Treppie, that’s my mother and father you’re talking about. You just keep your mouth shut about them.’
‘Oh yes, right, your mother and father, naturally it’s your mother and father. It’s ’cause of them that we’re in our glory here with you. You think they’re better than me, hey? Well, let me tell you something, my boy. They also lie to you, just like me. They lie to you to give you a better opinion of yourself. They talk the biggest lot of fucken shit, the poor fuckers.’
‘Like what, Treppie? What do they lie about?’
‘You’d love to know, wouldn’t you? Okay, here goes.’
He looks at Treppie. There’s a whole floor full of broken Coke bottles between them. He sees Treppie looking at the bottles. Treppie’s got a disgusted look on his face. More than disgusted. He looks like he’s got a rotten smell up his nose. Now he smells it too. A smell like piss. And the smell of his come, which he always wipes off on an old T-shirt. Iron and oil, he smells iron and oil. He feels like he’s too much for himself. He swallows on something hot that’s starting to rise in his throat. Spots in front of his eyes. He can hear what Treppie’s saying, but it’s zinging inside his ears.
‘That story about when we became a republic, about the corsages and all that stuff your mother talks about when she’s pissed, it’s all a lot of lies, that. The part about making the corsages is true, we did that, but that was the night you went and threw your first fit. Just when things were starting to get going here. We were still having a big party and then your eyes did a somersault for real and you rolled right over into the trays of flowers and you shat and pissed and vomited all at the same time, right on top of the whole business. And then you lay there and took one fit after another till your back was as bent as a bucket-handle. Then me and Pop grabbed hold of you and strapped your arms and legs tight with our belts and took you to the hospital. They looked us up and down there and stuck up their noses and said you’d drunk too much brandy; epileptics shouldn’t drink alcohol, didn’t we know that? But if you fitted again, they said, with or without brandy, we must take an ice-cream stick and shove it into your mouth so you don’t bite off your tongue.’
Treppie lights another cigarette. He pulls hard and blows out clouds of smoke.
‘And from that day on you’ve spoilt every fucken party we’ve ever had here. You break every fucken thing in the house and you make shit as far as you go.
‘Ja,’ says Treppie. He kills the flame that’s been burning in his hand all this time. Blue sulphur-smoke hangs in the air. ‘And as far as Republic Day’s concerned – no one went to Pretoria that day, and no one made six hundred rand, and you didn’t charm anyone out of their paper money there by acting crazy with your donation list. ’Cause you weren’t even there. That’s what. Pop took those trays full of corsages, full of your vomit and your shit, and he buried them just like that, right here in the backyard. Ribbons and all. All the trouble, all the money – our money from the fridge business – into its glory, ’cause Baby Benade, the lamb of our loins, ’cause Lambertus the third – surprise, surprise! – turned out to be a genetic cul-de-sac. But that’s too difficult for you, so just think of a bulldozer in a sinkhole instead.’
Treppie dusts off his hands, as if he’s got dirt or fluff on them. ‘Food for thought, hey?’ he says, and he winks at Lambert as he starts walking back into the house.
‘Hey,’ says Lambert. He has to clear his throat. His voice won’t come out so nicely. ‘Hey,’ he begins again, ‘what about my girl, for my birthday …’
‘We’ll have to see, old buddy, we’ll just have to wait and see,’ Treppie says, and then he winks one last time.
In that moment, just as Treppie tries to walk here, right past his face, back into the house, Lambert takes one step forward, on to a piece of glass. But he doesn’t feel anything.
He takes Treppie from behind, by the neck. Such a thin little neck. He gets a nice grip, on Treppie’s throat. Then he drags him inside, kicking and squirming through the kitchen, where Treppie kicks over the Primus, spilling its cold Jungle Oats all over the lino. He drags him all the way down the passage. As they go, the loose blocks on the floor jump up. He drags him past the bathroom, past Pop and his mother’s room, right into the lounge, where his mother’s standing on a beer crate, trying to get the curtain rings back on to the railing and the railing back in under the pelmet. Gerty’s with her. He hears Gerty bark a scared little bark. He sees his mother turn around. Her mouth is open. She swings the railing with her as she turns, she gets such a fright.
‘Hey! You two!’ she shouts. Treppie gets the railing full in the face. Mol swings again. She mustn’t go swinging railings now. He feels the railing slide off his shoulder. He throws Treppie against the wall.
‘Hic’ goes Treppie as he hits the wall, sliding down on to his backside.
‘You just stay there for a while,’ he says to Treppie. He takes one big step towards his mother and rips the railing out of her hands. Gerty jumps up against him. He kicks her, and she lets out a yelp as she flies through the air. Toby comes to look as well. He thinks it’s a game. He starts barking and gets two kicks. ‘Ow-whoo, ow-whoo!’ he cries.
‘You people think you can lie to me, hey?’ he says, bending the railing over his knee, curtain and all. It feels like a piece of tin. ‘People mustn’t lie to me!’ he says. He takes a jump and grabs hold of the pelmet. One end comes clean out of the wall. That’ll show them.
‘Go get yourself ready, Ma, I want to see you in the back room as soon as I’m finished here.’
He grabs Gerty’s green ribbing and the half-done yellow back part in one swipe, breaking the pins and pulling out the stitches on both sides. Fucken rubbish! Then he walks out the front door to the postbox on the lawn and kicks it with his bare foot so hard it smashes into the prefab wall.
He feels no pain. He feels fucken nothing. He picks up the postbox and throws it on to the neighbours’ roof. As it hits the corrugated iron it goes ‘boom!’, and then ‘doof-doof-doof’ as it rolls down. It hits the gutter, tips over and falls on to the ground with a thud. He hears someone swearing next door. Let them fucken swear!
Then he goes back into the house. Past Treppie, who’s still sitting against the wall in the passage. He leaves a trail of blood as far as he goes. He heads for the back room.
He sees Pop giving way in front of him. Good for him. Pop always goes and hides in the bathroom behind the door. Let him. He wants to go and tell lies. His mother’s already in the back room. She knows her place. Now he’ll first have to throw out that stinking dog of hers, ’cause she always sits there and looks. He doesn’t like dogs looking at him when he’s busy. And his mother had better keep her mouth shut. Nowadays she screams like someone’s slitting her throat or something. Well, she’d better watch out or he’ll squash her fucken voicebox to a pulp. They mustn’t come here and treat him like he’s a fucken idiot.
For a long time, Pop sat there with his fingers in his ears and his head against the cold middle hinge of the bathroom door. When he took his fingers out, Mol was quiet again. All he heard from the back room was sniffing. But now there were other noises too. People talking. Lambert talking to other people. Pop sat there for a long time, looking at himself in the piece of mirror in the bathroom cabinet. He looked blue and white, like stones. Then he went to the front to see who was talking, but by then they’d left already. It was the NPs. They’d dropped off their pamphlets and then got the hell out. And no wonder – the lounge looked like a hurricane had hit it. Lambert had a rag around his foot, with blood seeping through in a bright red stain. Treppie was holding a hand to a deep cut over his eye. And then Mol came out from the back, Gerty in her arms. Slowly and carefully she went and sat in her chair, Gerty still in her arms. Very slowly and carefully, like she was sore.
Later, when Pop saw Treppie locking the front gate with the chain for the night, he went out to have a word with him.
‘Treppie, man, listen to me, you can’t carry on like this with old Lambert. We’d better make a plan and find him a girl. Really. Otherwise he’s going to kill the lot of us here in this house before long.’
Then Pop picked up the dented postbox from where next door had thrown it back on to the grass, and he carried it through to the back, even though it was getting heavier and heavier in his hands. He put it down at the foot of Lambert’s bed.
‘Here’s your postbox, my boy. Tomorrow we fix it. First thing in the morning. I’ll help you, me and Treppie.’
Pop didn’t say anything to Mol. She was already sleeping, lying on her side in her housecoat, on the far side of their worn-out double mattress. She lay there with Gerty in her arms, the light from the naked bulb burning brightly above her head.