WE DRIVE OUT OF Jay Bay as a misty sun comes up over a moody sea.
We stop in Port Elizabeth for breakfast on a bleak, deserted beachfront. The wind rips off the sea and seagulls fly into the wind over the rocks without making headway.
In Port Elizabeth I draw my savings for a standby ticket overseas. I know it is like leaving a spoor in the sand for the police to find.
I offer Peejay money for the cords and sandals and to chip in for the ride.
– Forget it. Maybe one day I’ll land on your doorstep, he says.
I wonder, as we drive along the winding coastal road, where my doorstep will be.
We go through the Ciskei: gothic aloes stabbing skyward through the stones.
Outside Port Alfred, a colony of white birds fills a dead black tree standing in a pool of saltwater by the roadside. The water level has dropped through the summer and the tree has surfaced like an unearthed skeleton. A heron weaves on spindly stilts through roots reaching up out of the mud like dead men’s fingers.
Port Alfred: sulking fishing boats on the Kowie, under a half-moon bridge.
As we reach the outskirts of East London there is a black man in a black suit walking ahead of a woman who carries a suitcase on her head. On top of the suitcase is a wire cage with two white chickens inside and on top of the cage is a three-legged firepot. The sight reminds me of that German fable about the rooster that stands on the cat that stands on the dog that stands on the donkey.
We cross the Buffalo River and look down on the string of yachts moored in the harbour and, beyond them, the cargo ships and cobalt sea.
We park down by the paved seafront walk and get take-away pies and Freezeland milkshakes and watch disillusioned penguins wilt under the obscured sun. An old man in a frayed tweed jacket and bared skinny legs peers into rock pools, like some awkward, earthbound stork. A turbanned Xhosa woman with tobacco-stained teeth sells baskets and beads. I buy beads from her, thinking it will be good to have something tangibly African if I make it to the hazy world of overseas.
After slurping the milkshakes down, we head down to Nahoon Reef.
Nahoon: a rock shaped like a tortoise juts out into the Indian Ocean. High dunes spine along the beach to where the Nahoon River runs into the sea. There are a few surfers out by the tortoise head, and as we watch them skim the waves, the sun rips through the clouds and we see dolphins in the glare. On the radio Bob Marley sings Three Little Birds and, for the moment, the barbed wire and ostriches of Oudtshoorn are far, far away.
– A good omen, tunes Peejay.
Does he mean the dolphins, or the three little birds, or the sun?
While Peejay surfs I walk along the beach and climb the dunes where those stubby plants grow that you rub on a bluebottle sting. On the dunes I just catch the sound of Creedence Clearwater seeping through the radio static of the waves. I unbutton the lumberjack shirt and cords and lie there in army-issue underpants and Peejay’s sandals and doze in the sun.
Dolphins weave through the sky above the sighing stone pines. Then I see that the pines are full of Egyptian geese and the branches bend under the birds. The geese face north and then, as if a gun sounded, they begin to lift into the sky. The geese eclipse the sun and the unearthly whistle of their wings fills my head. They fly so low over me that sometimes the tips of their wings brush my face.
I awake to find a silhouetted boy twiddling a feather in his fingers.
– I thought I should wake you before you burnt, he says.
He lies close by on a towel with a motif of oranges and lemons.
– I am Michelangelo.
– As you see, I am not David, I remark as I pull on my cords.
Michelangelo smiles at my shame over my bizarre tan.
– You travelling? He wonders.
– Yes.
– Lucky you. I’m still at school. When I get out I’m going to study drama at Rhodes. Then I’ll go into film. This English teacher, Mister Ford, got me hooked on acting. He cast me as Nick in a play he wrote, based on The Great Gatsby. Do you act?
– No.
Michelangelo lip-ices his lips. Bubblegum flavour.
– Some afternoons I went over to Mister Ford’s flat. He filmed me being Nick. Daisy was a mop and Jordan a golf bag. He made me act just in my Speedo. At first it felt weird in front of a teacher, but he sensed I had to kill my fear. That’s how intuitive Mister Ford is. In the end it felt so destined.
He digs his toes down under the sand.
– Destined.
– I met a girl not so long ago and it felt like destiny. Now I’m not so sure.
– So what happened to her?
I waver, then gamble on telling him.
– I got my call-up.
– Oh, so that’s why you have a panda tan.
– And that’s why I’m wearing these army underpants.
– Oh. I just thought you had no taste.
– Thanks.
Michelangelo offers me a Camel and I cup it in my hands to light it in the breeze. I dangle it casually from my lips like my father does with his Texans but just get smoke in my eyes.
– Hey, says Michelangelo. If you could do anything, anything in the world, what would you do?
– I would live on the edge of the sea with Zelda, the café girl.
– You’re a deserter. Aren’t you? says Michelangelo, changing tack.
– I am.
– Was it so bad? says Michelangelo, pinching his toes.
– It was for me. Anyway, I jumped the wire and got a lift to East London. I hope to get a flight out of South Africa tomorrow.
– Shit, so this is like your last day on the beach?
– My last day under the sun.
I bury my feet in the sand.