‘How much is that doggy in the window? Whoof whoof!
The one with the waggily tail,’
he sings in her face. Then he puts his hand on her knee, pretending to comfort her. She pushes it away.
‘Sister dear,’ he says, ‘what’s in a dog? I mean, in the grand design of things, your life, my life, dog’s doily, cat’s backside! It’s all the same, not so, in Triomf or Parktown North, Honolulu or Siam!’
Treppie wants to get up, but before he can steady himself Pop stretches out a long arm, grabs him by the shirt-front and pulls him up towards his face. Treppie half falls over her food. He knocks over the enamel mug. She leans back a bit. She wants to think about Pop’s dream now, but she can’t get up to speed. The picture of Gerty lying like that in the bathroom keeps coming back into her head.
And now Gerty’s in the sheet. Here at the back, in the shadow between the prefab wall and the house. Pop wiped everything nice and clean again. And he held her tight. Pop understands. But he mustn’t over-exert himself now.
‘Treppie,’ he says, ‘have you no respect? Are you the very Satan himself, straight from hell? You stop now, you hear me? If you want to go looking for trouble, go find it with one of your own kind. Go look till you find someone like yourself, that’s if you’ll ever find another one like you. Just leave us alone here today. We’ve got business to see to.’
Pop pushes Treppie against his chest so hard that he ends up on his backside in the middle of the coffee.
‘Whoof!’ says Toby.
‘Lambert,’ says Pop, ‘take Treppie to his room and make sure he stays there.’
‘Right,’ says Lambert. He likes what he’s seeing here, she can see that. He didn’t know Pop could still cut Treppie short like this.
‘Wha-wha!’ shouts Treppie. Now he’s acting like he’s three years old. ‘I doan wannoo an’ I’m not gonnoo!’ he screams with his thumb in his mouth. Lambert’s got him by the collar. He drags him down the passage, into his room, with his feet still half off the ground. They hear Lambert locking him into the room. Lambert brings Pop the key and Pop puts it in his pocket.
‘Wha-wha!’ Treppie shouts again from behind the closed door. Then he’s quiet. After a little while there’s a muffled ‘whoof-whoof’, then nothing.
‘So much for that,’ says Pop, standing up. He puts the cup down on the sink. Then he takes a rag and wipes up the coffee.
Pop’s a different person in the presence of death, she thinks to herself.
‘It says in the Western Telegraph,’ says Lambert, ‘that they cremate dogs for free at the SPCA. In Booysens. No charge. They’ve got a crematorium for animals there.’
‘Ja, ash is nice and light.’
‘Ja,’ says Pop, ‘ash …’ He thinks a little. ‘I’m just thinking. Then we’ll have to sign all kinds of papers again.’ He thinks a little more. ‘How about here at the back, in the yard. Then it stays our business. Then she’s still here with us. What you say, Mol?’
‘The earth is hollow.’
‘Come again?’ says Pop.
‘Just now she falls through. Down. Through a sinkhole.’
Lambert catches on quickly. ‘That story was just a lie, Ma. It’s all right. I promise. The earth is still very hard here in Triomf. Packed hard. It’s all just bricks and cement from the kaffir-houses. She won’t just fall through. I promise.’
‘But we must wait till dark,’ says Pop. ‘Otherwise everyone stares at us. Or next door complains. And we don’t want the police here again, hey, Mol?’
Mol shakes the tin of yellow spray-paint. It doesn’t want to come out so nicely. She can’t see what’s going on, either. It’s getting too dark. But she told them they must have the funeral and get done with it. She doesn’t want to spend the whole night lying awake, trying to think of something nice to write on Gerty’s grave.
Lambert’s gone to see if he can find another tin of spray-paint and Pop’s fetching Treppie. He must’ve cooled down by now, says Pop. And shame, he also knew Gerty. What’s more, Treppie’s a man with a text for every occasion. Pop must’ve noticed – she doesn’t know what to say or write.
Now the paint’s coming out better. ‘So, Toby, what should the missus write here on the wall, hey?’ Toby stands next to her. He knows very well what’s going on. When they marked out the little grave with stones and tins in the late afternoon, Toby stood and watched them with his ears pricked. It was only when they started digging that he got some life back into him. The digging was a struggle. The earth was full of rubble, and they had to use a pick to wrench loose and lift out some of the big blocks of cement. They got only three feet deep when Pop said enough. He was tired and Gerty didn’t have to go six feet under, she was only a dog, after all.
But Mol climbed into the hole herself and stamped her feet to test how strong the earth was. She was listening for hollow spots. She even lay down to see if the lie was right, with her cheek on those pieces of raw brick. It was an eerie feeling, but she had to know. Toby also jumped into the hole out of sheer panic. He was trying to pull her out by the flaps of her housecoat.
Then she went and fetched Gerty’s half-finished jersey and put it in the grave with her. She also fetched what was left of the ball of yellow wool. It won’t be needed next year for ribbing. And then it was time to close up the grave.
Suddenly, Toby began to bark terribly. Pop had to give him bread so he’d shuddup. They were scared next door would come out and see what they were doing. It was against the law, Pop said.
She doesn’t mind. She’s glad they didn’t hand Gerty over to strange people.
She gets her angle right. Then she aims for a spot between the two upright poles of the prefab wall. The ground on the grave is soft under her feet and the light spilling over from the streetlamp is very faint.
Here lies Gerty Benade, she writes. The paint sprays on to her fingers. She stands back. The writing runs skew down the wall, but you can still read it. Now for the next line:
Mother of Toby Benade
and sweetheart dog of Mol ditto.
‘What about the date?’ Lambert suddenly says, behind her. He passes her another tin. She sprays into the air. It sprays much better.
Here come Pop and Treppie now. Treppie’s got a torch. She asks him to shine it so she can see. What else?
‘Rip,’ says Pop.
No, she’s got an idea.
Now she’s in dog’s heaven, she writes underneath. Yes, that sounds good.
‘The date,’ says Lambert.
‘No, wait, Mol. Wait.’ It’s Treppie. She turns round. She can’t see what’s going on ’cause the torch is shining in her face. Treppie’s voice sounds different.
‘Wait for what?’
‘That’s very nice, Mol, about dog’s heaven. I like it. But it’s not finished. Write this underneath: “where the dogs are seven eleven”.’
Treppie sounds like he wants to cry. Did he really have a soft spot for Gerty all this time? She looks at Pop.
‘Write!’ says Pop.
She has to bend down low. There isn’t much space left.
… where the dogs are seven eleven, she writes, smaller and smaller, ’cause the ground runs upward to the one side. She remembers seven eleven, the lucky numbers in dice, from the stories Treppie told them about gambling with the Chinese.
She stands back. Treppie shines the torch on the words. He reads everything from the beginning. Pop puts his hand on her shoulder.
‘That’s better,’ says Treppie. ‘Death deserves an ending that rhymes well, even if it isn’t the truth.’
She looks up, at Pop. Is Treppie mocking her again or what? But Pop’s face is dead serious.
‘Much better,’ he says. ‘How about a nice stiff brandy?’
Treppie says, yes, he agrees. Four fingers for each of them, ’cause that’s what you deserve if you bury a dog with so much love and respect.
She can’t believe her ears, but he really isn’t playing the fool with her. She takes th
e torch and shines it into his face. Treppie’s eyes are shining and there’s moisture in the hollows around his mouth.
‘What you looking at, hey? Switch that light off,’ is all he says. And then he bends over and rubs Toby’s head, hard.
13
LUCKY FINDS
It’s the Wednesday before Guy Fawkes. Things here at the Benades are going to have to be shipshape for when that girl of his comes. Everyone will just have to put their best foot forward. Treppie will have to behave himself and watch that dirty mouth of his. And his mother must learn to keep her legs together and leave that tooth of hers where it belongs. And Pop, Pop must just stay cool. He must lift his head off his knees and wipe his nose and make some conversation. Then he, Lambert, will be satisfied. As for himself … Well, that’s something he doesn’t even want to think about. There’s so much about himself he’d like to fix up: his hair, his fat belly, his backside. He needs some clothes, and some underpants so his dick won’t hang out of his shorts all the time. Women don’t like it. That’s what his mother says, but what does she know? Bugger her anyway.
If only things would work. Cars, fridges, the lawn-mower. If everything was nice and tidy; if all the rubbish got cleared up; then, he reckons, maybe his girl will want to come back again.
He’s just going to have to make a start, today. Things must start getting fixed-up around here, so it’ll be a helluva pleasure to visit their house. It must be so shipshape around here that his girl will stay longer and longer, until she doesn’t want to go back to her own place any more, until she just wants to stay on and on, maybe forever. And if the shit really starts flying after the election, then he’ll tell her she must come with, to the North, ’cause it’ll be her only chance. She might even say yes. Maybe.
His head starts zinging. He sits down on his bed. Just the thought that his girl will stay forever, or go with them to the North, makes him feel dizzy.
And if the shit doesn’t fly, he’ll take her for a spin in Flossie every night when it’s late. On those new light blue seats with romantic, late-nite music from Radio Orion in their ears. Flossie will get a sound system second to none. Not even a policeman in a hot-rod will have a better one.
Right. Now he must start thinking nicely about what needs to be done. So he can begin, now, at the beginning.
The most important is that they must be ready when the shit starts flying. They must have enough petrol. Enough to get to the border. He figures one full tank, plus another one-and-a-half, maybe two, in bags. That should be enough. Those bags take five litres each, so he’ll need about sixteen to eighteen of them. He’s already got about eleven, but when he filled one with water, it started leaking. This stuff mustn’t start leaking on him now. So, he must take all the bags he’s already got, fill them up with water and then pack them into the hole under the den. On top of each other. That’s the way they’ll get stacked on the roof-rack. And then, after a day or two, he must check them all for leaks. That means he still needs about seven bags, make it ten for the ones that leak. That hole under his den will have to get a bit bigger. The bags can’t just lie here all over his room. The day before his birthday he’ll go fill them up with petrol. Then they’ll be ready.
So, that’s number one. Petrol. No, number one is Flossie. He must get Flossie going again. Pop says all she’s good for is spares, but he’ll show Pop a thing or two.
Of course, if Pop’s right, there’s always Molletjie to fall back on. So, petrol’s still number one. Let the cars sort themselves out. Cars are like that. Take what you can from them and forget the rest. Cars won’t let you push them around.
But lawn-mowers are a different story. All he has to do is weld a new lever where the old one broke off. Then he can clean the carburettor and check the petrol pipe for dirt. He thinks the petrol’s not coming through so nicely. That’s why it cuts out all the time. So, that’s number two, the lawn-mower, ’cause the grass will have to be cut to a T, in beautiful straight lines, one way up, one way down. Not the way his mother does it, in crooked strips, skipping patches and ripping out big chunks of grass.
And then number three is definitely the postbox. He’s just going to have to put it up again.
Not to mention the gutters those bastards next door broke off, ’cause when it rains nowadays there’s a big ‘shorrr’ noise all over the place, like they’re living in a rain forest or something. It leaks inside, too, but fixing a roof is another story. It must please just not rain that night. And the whole house needs a coat of paint, too. A long time ago the house used to be yellow, Pop says, but now it’s just dirty. It needs a coat of pure, beautiful white.
To him, a house without gutters and paint looks like a cake with no icing. Come to think of it, when his birthday comes, and his girl pitches up here, a cake with icing will be just the thing. It’s a long time since he saw cake, never mind icing.
He must remember that! Something sweet for the occasion. He’s been thinking of salty things ’cause they go with sundowners and nightcaps. But where there’s salt, there also has to be sweet. Something sweet is nice for breakfast. Maybe she’ll stay for breakfast. Surely that’s not asking too much?
And what else? A lot!
He’s going to have to fix the spot on the lounge wall where the plaster came off. With Polyfilla, and then paint over it, in fact the whole wall, ’cause it’s so dirty from the dogs. And those naked bulbs everywhere. They must get shades, even if it’s just cheapskate enamel ones. And the floor-blocks in the lounge – fasten them down and varnish them. The passage too. And he mustn’t forget the pelmet he ripped off last time when he got so pissed off with Treppie’s nonsense.
What’s more, he’s sick and tired of his mother’s headless cat. Either he must chuck it away or he must get a new one from Shoprite. One with a head.
And the hole in the front door. A thin piece of plywood should do the job.
What else? Christ, there’s a lot! He’s not going to do a fucken thing to Treppie’s room, that’s for sure. The only thing you can do there is close the door. Pop and Mol’s room too. But something will have to be done about the bathroom and the kitchen. They say in the adverts women like their bathrooms ‘flawless’. They like them to smell ‘fragrant’. And they also fancy those American kitchens with breakfast counters, but that’s aiming a bit high. To start with, maybe just scrub the lino. Clean the fridge.
And then there’s that blocked drain in his mother’s kitchen. From the washing basin. Blocked to the nines with about three months’ worth of muck in there. He’ll have to get some Drain Buster, the one in the black bottle. He remembers seeing it in the hardware shop. Maybe then they won’t have to chuck the dishwater out the kitchen door any more. That’s what his mother does, anyway. If she wants to clean something, she pours a cup of water into it and stirs it with her finger. That’s what she calls cleaning. This kind of thing’s going to have to stop. They must start washing up properly in this house, with green Sunlight from a bottle that makes foam. A whole mealtime’s dishes and glasses and pudding bowls and dishing-up spoons, with just one teaspoon. Shining bright. Never mind the fact that they haven’t got all those dishes and glasses and things.
And the toilet. That’s another fucken story. It’s got a crack in it, so it leaks on to the floor all the time. And Treppie never flushes. His pee stinks like horsepiss. Everyone’s going to have to learn to flush on the spot, so at least the water on the floor won’t be piss. ’Cause a new toilet will cost more than a hundred bucks. And a plastic seat with a lid will cost almost the same. Hell, if he can just get a seat … that china under an oke’s backside is fucken freezing, man, not to mention a woman’s backside.
And then there’s the bathroom mirror that his mother complains about so much. Jesus, that’s also another story.
Now his head’s really spinning.
Where’s he going to get all the money from?
Treppie says he and Pop are putting away all their extra money for the girl. Quality girls cost a lot o
f money nowadays. That’s what Treppie says. Somebody told him. He, Lambert, has almost no money of his own. Cigarettes, sweets, videos and beers. That’s about all he can afford at the end of the month. Plus maybe some duco for Flossie, and GTX for Molletjie and the lawn-mower. Then he’s really had it. Treppie buys the booze and most of their food, ’cause Pop says he can only afford the basics. Bread, Sunshine D, polony, milk, coffee, Coke, dog food in tins. Pop says only two tins of wet food a week, and for the rest Toby must eat dry food. Treppie buys those Dogmor chunks in big tins from the Chinese. They get it wholesale. Treppie says the Chinese eat those Dogmor-dogs. Chopped up into the sweet and sour. He says they call it chop suey.
At least now there’s one dog less in the house. Not even a Chinese would have eaten her.
If they want meat and jam and peaches in a tin, Pop says, then Treppie must buy it. And Klipdrift too, so they can keep up with themselves.
Pop says he’s also saving up for coffins and things for him and Mol one day. And it’s going to cost even more if she wants to be cremated like she’s been saying lately. Pop says he’s going to have to make a plan, somehow.
Where was he now?
Suddenly he can’t remember a thing on his list. The stuff’s flying through his head and he can’t get a good grip on it. He knows only broken things fly through his head like this. There’re too many broken things to fix up. Too little time. And fuck-all money.
Hell, he must just keep track here. He’ll make a list, that’s what he’ll do. He’ll start again from the beginning and write everything down on his list, then he can tick them off one by one as he finishes each thing. Then he’ll know what’s what. Then he can work out a timetable. One thing at a time. Each thing must have its own time and its own day, from now on, up to and including the big day. And when he’s finished, he can draw a line through each thing. Then he can see at any time how far he’s already got and how much he still has to do.
Right, let’s make a list, then. There on the back wall, where he can see it all the time. But where on the wall? It’s so full. He looks around his room.
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