George was like a branch of blossoms in an enchanted secret garden behind a high wall. The flowers compel your gaze, their fragrance casts the spell of ancient kingdoms. You can place a branch of blossoms gently in a vase, but it won’t last. And if you’re rough with it, its blossoms come tumbling down, tumbling down. But then, falling blossoms are a devastatingly, religiously beautiful sight. That was George.
He couldn’t possibly have remained on his branch. He had to be adored and appreciated in the spring, because his winters were pure despair. I first met him when I was nineteen years old. It seemed as if George’s sole purpose in life was to be fabulous, to be flown around the world drinking pink champagne at breakfast and spraying Chanel No. 5 at passing strangers who took his fancy. He had ‘benefactors’, fabulously rich people who demanded and sponsored his presence at glamorous parties in exotic places. He was a disco queen, famous in New York, mentioned in Andy Warhol’s diaries. He did a rendition of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ that could melt a tyrant’s heart.
Once, on the promenade in Cape Town, a gust of wind blew up my skirt, exposing my shabby old knickers. Within two days a box of silk La Perla underwear wrapped in tissue paper was delivered to my front door. George wouldn’t allow me to expose anything but the most delicate handmade lace.
Of course, I do remember that he drank, and there always seemed to be coke about in his glamorous crowd. Strangely, he was the only person I knew who didn’t become vulgar or repellent on coke. To me, in my naivety, even at 4 a.m. in a nightclub lavatory, hopped up on cocaine, George remained as delicate and refined as pink sorbet served in a crystal flute. It was only years later that I learnt the truth: after we’d all called it a night and gone to bed, George would sit up, coked up, all alone on drugs, alcohol and chaos. Party-time over.
Sometimes he’d send me a ‘care package’ from New York: a box of American trinkets, candy, postcards of Marilyn Monroe, cosmetics and Chanel. I believed he was perfect. He became an artist, doing portraits of New York’s rich and famous; portraits as detailed, intuitive and intricate as he was himself.
He ran with a fast crowd. He got into trouble. His fabulousness turned foul. He was diagnosed bipolar. Discovering that he was buried in serious debt (as bipolar people are wont to be), concerned friends bailed him out and brought him back to South Africa. He was a broken-down, drawn, humble shadow of himself.
The medication George was prescribed robbed him of all life and light. It robbed him of his art and his candyfloss demeanour. He joined a religious sect. They kept him quiet. Then his medication was reduced and modified, and, although he wasn’t a laugh a minute, he was more like his old self. He drew magnificently, and he emanated tranquillity and the ironically frothy depth of people who have returned from the dead.
He seemed so well that, at a New Year’s Eve party in Cape Town, someone insisted he enjoy just one glass of Moët. Later, someone else gave him a ‘little red bomb’ (barbiturate), so that he could kick up a heel and relax for old times’ sake. He found a ‘healer’ who succeeded in getting him off his medication.
Before long he was once again the fabulous, irrepressible life force whom everyone had loved all those years before. Some old friends tried desperately to rescue him. Other old friends desperately embraced the glamorous party animal they’d lost for so many years.
He lived out his script. In December 2001, George’s sister found him dead in a Donna Summer pool of glitter. I wasn’t even remotely surprised. But a part of my heart broke. The rosy tint through which I had enjoyed my vision of the world turned angry amber. The truth is, candyfloss and blossoms don’t keep.
When a person I love dies, the harmony of my life is shattered into chaos. I don’t feel safe in the world and I’m reminded that we can all lose the people we love most. Death is random. My grand faith in a higher being flounders, and I’m lost. But then I notice the little daily occurrences of my life and I’m reminded about people’s innate ability to uplift and understand one another. I believe in humanity and the serenity of the little ecologies we create. Small daily exchanges. The dependable warmth of a checkout lady who shares her life stories with me as she packs my groceries. The neighbour who stretches over her fence every evening to talk nonsense. When my faith in God falters, well, sometimes a more earthly light illuminates. The kindness of strangers, the proverbial ‘kind’ of humankind, the way we touch one another, unexpectedly, unconditionally. We have a common vein travelling through us all, something universal that makes us understand one another, derive joy from each other.
And God knows, that helps, but it hasn’t made it easy. Every time someone I love who has happened to be bipolar has died, I’ve felt a little more alone in the world. I hear the laughter of the old man in my head becoming more cacophonous, more triumphant and more menacing. He’s determined always to have the last laugh.