Chapter Thirty-three

E ’N UNTO ETERNITY.

The restaurant surfaces are smooth and shiny. The sound of clinking glasses bounces off the black marble and chrome. The hands of our fellow diners flash with signet rings, or chunky jewels; there’s a lot of hairspray in the air. I’ve scrutinised everybody. Matt and I are waiting for Dylan, who is forty minutes late. I twist my napkin into a tight coil and loop it round my finger. The waiter meets Matt’s request for more olive bread.

‘Stop worrying,’ says Matt, reaching across the table to cover my hand.

‘But suppose something’s gone wrong. This could destroy him.’

Last month’s dreaded meeting with the Bishop had an unexpected outcome. Far from heralding the end of Dylan’s career, it had sparked a certain renaissance. Having refused to play the sacrificial lamb, he had found himself anointed a disciple. For it came to pass that the man and the office were at war. In public, the Bishop sided with the conservatives and emphasised church orthodoxy. Privately, he and his wife held more liberal views. It was time, he told Dylan, to throw off the chasuble of hypocrisy; to sweep away the age of ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’, and usher in a new era of tolerance. Dylan had been appointed his spokesman, and today was his first engagement: to speak in a televised debate on gay adoption.

Who’d have thought it? Growing up, I planned things meticulously: I skipped in multiples of four, later tens; I avoided cracks on the pavement; I handed in my homework on time. In southern Africa, in the face of racial tension, poverty and crime, everyone has always talked of ‘making a plan’. It means the opposite of how I lived; it means being spontaneous, going with the flow. Matt’s motto is that life works out – but not necessarily in the way you expect.

‘Thank God,’ cries Matt, rising from his chair. ‘It’s the Pol Roger Padre!’

‘Pol Rogers all round – my treasurer tells me we made nearly three thousand pounds with the show last week! My mother says it was her face on the posters that did it,’ Dylan adds, sinking into his chair. ‘Hey! You’ve gone brown,’ he says, stroking my hair.

‘Chestnut, please! It’s my natural colour. Tell us about the debate,’ I say, hurriedly. ‘How did it go? We were so worried.’

‘That’s the royal “we”, you understand,’ grins Matt.

‘Well, the gloves are off !’ says Dylan, demanding a large gin and tonic. ‘Today’s the day we of the broad Anglican Church stood up to be counted.’

‘Came out of the closet, you mean,’ says Matt.

‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’ says Dylan, scanning the menu.

‘Oh, but I am,’ laughs Matt. ‘You’re my Care in the Community project for today.’

‘I’m flattered!’ Dylan stretches and touches a waiter lightly on the arm. ‘Excuse me. What’s the soup today?’

‘Radish and artichoke. Don’t even go there.’

Dylan looks at us and pulls a face. ‘Now – where was I?’

‘You stood up to be counted,’ I repeat.

‘Ah, yes,’ he says, breaking bread. ‘We’ve had amazing publicity. And people on the street holding placards supporting gay clergy. Someone threw an egg, but it missed me.’ Dylan pops a bread cube into his mouth. ‘Nerve-racking, but exciting. It’s probably a bit like discovering you’re pregnant!’ he laughs.

Matt and I steal a glance.

‘But I’m doing my bit. And, God willing, it will be so e’n unto eternity—’

‘Toad in the hole?’ announces a waiter, with disdain.

*

Dylan and Matt suck on their cigars, exhaling long grey ghosts that tango over the table. My napkin is now a crumple of origami. A waiter deposits two small glasses of honey-coloured liquid before the men.

‘Aren’t you having one?’ asks Dylan, surprised. I shake my head and reach out for my water glass. ‘Oh, go on. It’ll do you good.’

I look over at Matt and then back at Dylan.

‘What? What am I missing?’ says Dylan, propping his cigar in the groove of the ashtray.

‘We’ve decided to adopt you,’ laughs Matt. ‘You’re our errant teenage son.’

‘I’m blessed. But seriously, what’s with the … No!’ Dylan stares at me. ‘You’re not—?’

I watch his cigar burn into wrinkles of ash, joined to the shaft by invisible threads.

‘Let me tell you something, Dyl,’ says Matt. ‘Have you ever heard of Oudtshoorn?’

‘No,’ said Dylan.

‘It’s a place in the Western Cape famous for ostrich farming. My parents plan to retire there, which is rather appropriate. They’re very traditional. Nationalist Party, not ANC. My father had the farm, my mother had me.’ Matt takes a sip of dessert wine. ‘Long ago, my mother’s view of herself as a good mother withered and died, and she never got over it. She buried her head in the sand. I understand her, but I am not her. I chose a life, not just an existence.’ He reaches out for my hand and squeezes it. ‘Life is about loss. It knocks you down, and you find new ways of muddling through. You make choices.’

‘Ah, but how do you know you’ve made the right choice?’ says Dylan.

Matt smiles and shakes his head. ‘You learn that sometimes there is no right choice. The important thing is to own the choices you make.’

‘Don’t tell me, after all this time, you’ve chosen to have a baby?’ cries Dylan.

‘Not as such,’ I say, slowly.

Matt gets up and announces he’s going to the bathroom.

‘Damn,’ says Dylan. ‘He’s gone for the bill. I know he’s gone for the bill.’

‘Forget it. You can get the bread and wine round yours next time.’

‘But I don’t understand,’ Dylan groans. ‘The message you left on my mobile this morning said you had something to tell me. If you’re not pregnant, what is it?’

Around us, empty tables are being re-laid for the evening shift – crisp linen, sparkling glasses, set with precision. A waiter is aligning the knives just so. It reminds me of how as a child I couldn’t go to sleep at night unless the bedroom door was pulled to at just the right angle.

I reach out for Dylan’s hands, and he listens as I explain as fully as I can.

‘Ah, my girls who gorge!’ cries Matt, approaching our table carrying coats.

‘Well, let me propose a toast,’ roars Dylan, as he rises from the table, an imaginary glass in his hand. ‘To our family of friends. And to tolerance!’

‘I think we’ve just exceeded our limit here of both,’ I say, laughing. And I steer Dylan by the elbow between the tables and out on to the pavement.