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Hatfield, Pretoria’s main social spot, was bustling with life. Not a day went by when there weren’t hordes of people drinking and laughing in the suburb. News Café on a Sunday afternoon was packed with an assortment of people. A mix of students, yuppies and flea-market bargain hunters sipped cocktails while the sunset. Muffled voices and clinking glasses filled the air. A man’s drunken voice rose above the others shouting for another beer.
Louis sat at the bar drinking his Black Label and kept one eye on the door. The bar counter was still wet from the barman’s alcohol-soaked cloth. A young woman, probably a student at TUKS, wearing a pair of skin-tight denim hipsters walked past him and gave him the once-over. He noticed she changed her walk to accentuate her rear end. He chuckled. Taking another sip of his beer, he admired the show and thanked his lucky stars that Nats wasn't there to see it. She would have scratched her eyes out
Someone sat down on the bar stool next to him. The sound of the stool clanging against the brass foot rail made Louis jump. It was Nico, not his jealous girlfriend.
“Howzit Bro. I didn’t even see you come in,” Louis said.
“Ja, I saw your attention was elsewhere, so I took the chance to sneak up on you. It’s what we cops are good at.”
“Okay, if you say so,” Louis laughed. “So can I buy you a beer?”
“That would be great. Thanks.”
Louis got the bartender’s attention and ordered a Black Label for Nico and another for himself. Louis tapped the counter with his fingers and looked around the crowded bar, trying to think of something to say while they waited for the beer to arrive.
“So,” he eventually decided on, “any closer to finding this so-called ... um ... what did the press call him again?”
“The Bathroom Strangler?”
“Yes, that’s the one. So any idea who he is?”
“Nope, and I really shouldn't be discussing the case with anybody.”
“Come on,” Louis said, looking eager for more information. You've got to tell me about it. I promise I won't tell anybody.”
“I don't know.”
“Look, if you don't trust me, then that’s fine. You don't have to tell me anything. It's okay. We'll just drink our beers. I thought that maybe talking about it might help you clear things up in your own head. You never know you might have one of those eureka moments, but if you'd rather not, I understand ... I'm not a member of the club.”
“What club?”
“The Cop Club,” Louis said, using his fingers as inverted commas.
“There's no such club. Trust me. It's not that I don't trust you. It's just that it's embarrassing that we have so little to go on; we're still busy pulling all the evidence together. I don't want to bore you with the details.”
“You couldn't possibly bore me. I find this fascinating ... It’s all anybody in the control room at work talks about.”
“Seriously? Don’t they have anything better to do?”
“Nah, all they used to worry about was who was shagging whom. At least now it’s interesting. So, aren’t you any closer to finding him?”
“We're working on it. We've got a few leads we're looking into.”
“Well, that's good. Maybe you'll catch him before the next one.”
The look on Nico's face told him it was doubtful.
“We live in hope one of the leads will pan out and will break the case,” Nico said.
Louis laughed. He couldn't help himself.
“So, that's the party line is it?” Louis asked with an ambiguous smile.
“I'm afraid so,” Nico said and took a swig from his beer.
“That's okay. I understand. Janet told me about what happened with your ex. If I were in your shoes, I'd also be careful about who I discussed things with.”
“Janet told you about Helen?” Nico almost spat out his beer.
“Ja, we tell each other everything. Have done since we were kids. No secrets in our group.” Louis sipped his beer and wondered if he should have said that. The look on Nico's face was not encouraging.
“That's good to know.” Nico swallowed a large gulp of beer.
Just as Louis was about to ask Nico another question, Nico's cell phone rang.
“Sorry, I have to take this,” he said with a slight sigh of relief and answered, “Van Staaden”.
Nico nodded his head a few times.
“Okay, I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he said to the person on the other end. Turning back to Louis, he said, “That was the Forensic Pathologist. It seems he’s ready to talk to me now. I’m sorry to cut this short but duty calls.”
“Sure, not a problem, maybe we can do this some other time. I know the girls want us to be friends.”
“Okay-ja-no-well-fine. Give me a shout some time, and we can make a plan.”
Nico walked out of the bar leaving Louis still sitting on his stool and with the bill. Louis took a final swig of his beer with a grimace and paid for the beers. Things hadn't gone quite as he'd hoped.
“Well, I guess I’d better visit my mother,” he muttered to himself as he left.
*
WALKING INTO HIS MOTHER’S flat brought back too many memories. Hardly any of them good. Why he put himself through this every Sunday, he would never know. He picked up the old photo of his parents on their wedding day. It had been standing on his mother’s dusty piano ever since his father left. He would never forget that night. The sounds of his parents fighting in the lounge had woken him up.
“I don’t want you or that bastard of yours!” his father yelled. “I’m not even sure he’s mine! You’re just a fucking whore! You’re both good for nothing!”
Tears ran down his face as he snuck out of his bedroom and down the dark passage. His bare feet didn’t make a sound on the cold tiles. He peered around the wall and saw his mother holding a full whisky glass, emptying the contents into her mouth. His father picked up his packed bags and walked out of the house and out of his life. He watched in shock as his mother threw the empty whisky glass at the shut door. She turned around and saw him standing there. He tried, unsuccessfully, to make himself invisible.
“You!” she shouted, “It’s all your fault! If it weren’t for you, he’d still be here!” In a matter of seconds, she had grabbed him by his pyjama collar and dragged him to the bathroom. She flung him in. He skidded across the cold, smooth floor and cracked his head on the bathtub. She kicked him over and over again. Everything went black.
Hours later he woke up in the bathroom on the cold floor with his legs wet and sticky. The slightest movement caused him pain. He remembered that his father was gone. His father didn’t want him anymore, and his mother hated him.
The sound of his mother calling him from the kitchen brought him back to the present. He was no longer the scared little six-year-old boy but a thirty-one-year-old man.
“Louis, is that you?” his mother screeched from the kitchen.
“Ja, Ma,” he yelled back as he walked through the small dirty house towards the kitchen. He poked his head around the door.
“You’re late,” she said.
“Sorry, Ma.” He looked down at his feet.
“But what else could I expect from you, hey?”
“Yes, Ma. Sorry, Ma.” He examined his feet more closely. He should have polished his shoes: she would notice. He rubbed the tip of his left shoe up and down on his calf, hoping that his jeans would somehow manage to give his shoes that just-polished shine. He then did the same to his right shoe.
“What are you doing hopping around like an idiot for?” His mother had caught him, she always did.
“Nothing, Ma.”
“That’s the problem with you. You’re always doing nothing. You just stand there looking like an idiot. Make yourself useful for a change and make your poor mother a cup of coffee.”
“Yes, Ma.” He put the kettle on and took a mug out of the cupboard above his head. His mother walked out of the kitchen and waited to be served her coffee in the lounge. He poured the boiling water into the mug, added a heaped teaspoonful of Frisco and three spoons of sugar. No milk. Her coffee was as black as her heart. He carried the hot coffee through to the lounge, careful not to spill a drop.
She sat on the couch with her legs crossed. He could still see the attractive woman she had once been beneath the wrinkles and the overdone makeup. He’d need a knife to scrape the gunk off her face to see what she really looked like. He put the coffee down in front of her and sat down on the edge of the opposite couch. She took a sip and immediately spat it out.
“What kind of crap coffee is this?” she asked as she smacked the mug down on to the dusty and now wet table.
“It’s how you always drink it, Ma.”
“Are you trying to poison me? After everything I’ve done for you.”
“No, Ma,” he said. “I can make you another cup if you don’t like that one.”
“No, you’ll just try to poison me again. Pour me a strong drink instead. At least you won’t be able to put poison in my whisky with me watching you like a hawk.”
“Ma, how many times do I have to tell you that I’m not trying to poison you? ... Nobody is. You’re imagining things.”
“Don’t backchat me, little boy. Just pour me my fucking drink.”
“Yes, Ma. Sorry, Ma.”
He stood up and walked over to the small battered cupboard that served his mother as her liquor cabinet. He took out the bottle of Three Ships Whisky and poured a triple tot into a dirty glass standing on top of the cabinet. He put the glass down in front of her. She picked it up and threw the contents down her throat. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she handed the glass back to Louis.
“Pour me another one and make it stronger this time.”
He poured her another triple shot and gave her the glass without a word.
“Don’t look at me like that, Louis,” she said and downed the alcohol. “I deserve a little bit of respect after everything I’ve sacrificed for you. I’m all alone because of you, and you want to desert me just like your father.”
“No, Ma, I’m not going to desert you. I’m here every Sunday, aren’t I?”
“But you would love to desert me just like your father, wouldn’t you?”
“No, Ma. You’re the only mother I have, and I love you.”
“Show me how much you love me and pour me another drink.”
He took the glass from her and poured her another drink.
“Good boy,” she said when he gave her the glass. “Give your mother a kiss and then get lost. I’ve seen enough of your ugly face.”
He bent over and kissed her on her forehead.
“No. Kiss me properly.”
He bent over and kissed her on the lips. Her tongue slithered into his mouth. He tasted the whisky and wanted to throw up. He managed to extract himself from her vice-like grip on the nape of his neck before he gagged.
He turned, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and walked towards the dark passageway that led to the front door. He stopped at the piano. It was incongruous. It didn’t fit in with the other furniture, which was all bargain-basement stuff; it certainly wasn’t compatible with the woman he knew to be his mother.
The piano had belonged to his father. His father had taught his mother to play when they first met but she now only thumped on it when she was drunk. She always thumped out the same piece of music, the last piece his father had tried to teach her to play, a Rachmaninoff piece, which his mother called the ‘coffin concerto’. As he closed the door behind him, he heard his mother start to bang on the piano. The sound tarantella’d up his spine.
It sounded like knocking from the inside of a closed coffin.