Then she gave Pop one look and they both knew they were just going to have to shuddup, ’cause Treppie’s head was like a merry-go-round. Even after three mugs of coffee.
So, here she stands behind him now. His one shoulder’s twitching again, like a broken jack-in-the-box. He signals to them they must get ready, he’s about to start knocking on the door. Not with his knuckles, she sees, but with a shoe that hasn’t got a heel. He found the shoe near the front gate. A small, black shoe made of patent leather. When he saw that shoe he said it looked like someone had popped Mary Poppins right out of her shoes, and he just hoped, for their sake and for the whole of Triomf’s sake, that the rest of her was unscathed. And intact.
Intact.
‘Rat-a-tat-tat-tat’, Treppie knocks. No answer. There’s a funny smell coming from the den. Treppie raises his eyebrows. What should he do now? Lambert’s coffee’s getting cold here in his other hand. How’s she supposed to know? He won’t listen to her in any case. Pop pulls at her from behind. He doesn’t want to go any further. He wants to go sleep, she knows. Where he got the strength from, she doesn’t know, but this morning he still wanted to patch up the front window with the plastic cover Lambert uses to cover Flossie when it rains.
‘Leave a shooting-hole,’ Treppie said, but it wasn’t necessary ’cause that plastic was no longer covering Flossie. It was under Flossie. And it was rotten with holes. Flossie was sopping wet. She stood there like a little bulldozer, her bumper pushed up against the prefab wall. She looked properly pooped.
Now Treppie pushes open the door. He has to shove with his shoulder, there’s so much stuff in front of the door. He makes high-stepping motions like the kaffirs when they march. The coffee goes ‘plops-plops’ over his hand. Come help, he signals to her with the shoe.
‘Viva Lambert, viva!’ he shouts as the door gives way.
‘Whoof!’ says Toby, pushing past everyone’s legs to get through.
Not her, God no, she’s staying right here where she is. All she can see now is Treppie and Toby and how they’re staring at Lambert. She can’t see Lambert. He must be sleeping.
Earlier, Treppie picked up a whole bag of beer tins and a Klipdrift bottle outside the den. Judging by the damage, he says now, it looks like more than just a hangover that Lambert’s sleeping off here. It looks like Lambert’s sleeping from pure despair, the kind of despair that comes from one thing and one thing only: not enough blood to the balls.
Couldn’t get it up.
Well, then, maybe that Mary was very lucky here last night, and, if you ask her, that kind of luck is worth the price of a shoe.
It’s them who’ll have to pay the price. The first thing they found was the postbox on the lounge floor. Shame, and Pop fixed it up so nicely for Lambert, painting it and everything. The paint must’ve still been wet ’cause there’s a blue smudge right in the middle of Jo’burg. What’s more, the whole house had been turned upside down.
That pelmet was so bent and twisted, Treppie said even the devil in hell wouldn’t be able to panelbeat it again. And her mirror, the one Pop specially put up in the bathroom yesterday afternoon, was in a thousand pieces all over the bath. And there were loose blocks everywhere, from the passage. It looked like they’d been dug out in big patches with a spade.
Pop pushes her from behind. They must either go in or go out, he motions, but he’s not planning to spend the whole day standing here in the doorway. Let them see what’s what and be done with it. He’s tired.
Just one step, so Pop can also see. Glass wherever you put your foot down. And a thick line of vomit on the floor. ‘Sis!’ Toby sniffs it. ‘Yuk!’
Pop must go fetch some newspapers in his room, Treppie says. Then they can use dry vomit to cover up the wet vomit.
‘God help us,’ Pop says. She watches him as he walks down the passage. It’ll be a miracle if Pop survives this day. Well, she’s stronger, let her take the lead here instead.
Treppie spins the little shoe on his finger like he’s doing a circus trick, spinning a plate on a stick. Just look what they found on the front lawn, he says. If they look long enough for her other parts they might even be able to reassemble the Creole Queen before the end of the day – is that what Lambert understands by value for money.
Lambert doesn’t hear a thing. He’s lying on his stomach in his shirt and his red underpants. The underpants reach only halfway up his backside.
Come, sing along, Treppie says.
‘Wake up, wake up, it’s a lovely day!’ Treppie sings. ‘Oh please, get up and come and play!’ Let him sing if he wants, she’ll just pick up the broken glass. Before there’s another accident.
What’s this flying through the air now? A shoe. Treppie’s thrown the shoe at Lambert.
‘Huh-uh,’ is all Lambert says. He rolls on to his other side. His shirt is full of vomit.
‘Time for reportback!’
How does Pop always put it? Treppie will drill into a dead hole until he finds a spark somewhere. Well, he can try, but this time she’s not so sure. Lambert looks like he’s lost to the world. His mouth hangs open.
Treppie mustn’t come and shove things in front of her nose now, it’s not her who has to do the reportback.
‘Hey, old Mol, check, he even stole your rose for the occasion!’
A rose is a rose is a rose, he always tells her, but she better not throw it back at him now, ’cause today she’s sure a rose will be something different.
Here’s Pop with the newspapers, but he won’t give them to her. He throws them down on top of the vomit himself. Looks like he’s throwing big, thin leaves into a hole. So carefully, like he’s at a funeral or something.
‘Did he fit?’ Pop asks.
Treppie bends over Lambert. He pinches his nose closed, holding his pinky up in the air.
‘His tongue’s still here!’
Treppie takes Lambert by the shoulders and shakes him hard. He must be careful, or he’ll set off more than a spark in there.
‘Fuck off!’ is all Lambert says.
They must get him awake and moving again. That’s what she thinks.
‘Bring some water,’ says Pop.
Treppie bows. ‘Allow me,’ he says. He winks at them and goes out the door. He’s capable of bringing in the hosepipe. She looks at Pop. What does he think? But no, it’s Toby’s red bowl full of water that Treppie carries back with him into the den. He holds it up solemnly over Lambert’s body.
‘Let oh Lord thy countless blessings rain down upon thy servant here,’ he says, his head tilted up. Treppie pours the water from high up in a thin little trickle, first on to Lambert’s crotch, then over his stomach and chest, and then, suddenly, he chucks the rest straight into his face.
‘I told you to fuck off!’
This is what she’s been afraid of. More than just a spark. Let her just get out of the way here, quickly. The outside door is open, thank God.
Lambert sits up straight. His eyes are wild. She can see he’s looking this way and that, but he can’t find his focus. Water drips from his face.
Pop stands in the one corner, Treppie in the other. She’s in the outside doorway.
Now it’s very quiet. Something goes ‘tick-tick-tick’, but it’s not her. It’s coming from the Fuchs, burnt black on the sides. Brown stuff runs out of it.
Lambert sits on the bed with his legs spread out wide in front of him. His shirt’s too tight. He tries to use his arms to stop himself from falling over.
He wants to know what they’re all looking at. What’s so funny and who do they think they’re looking at? She uses her hands to cover her ears. He roars like a lion, this Lambert. Now his arms give backwards and he falls over. His thing is hanging out from his underpants.
‘Pit bull terrier!’
Oh heavens! What’s she gone and said now? Pop looks at her. She covers her mouth with her hand.
But here comes a thing now flying towards her through the air. ‘Whirrr!’ Lambert’s thrown something right in
to her face. What is it? Oh God, no, it’s all hair and it smells like a person and now it’s stuck on her face like a thing with claws and it won’t come off!
What’s Treppie singing there now? A ‘disjointed’ piece of what? No, he’s singing about a ‘Creole tarantula’. What can that be? She can’t see anything. She throws the thing down. Oh God, it’s a head full of hair. But where’s the head, then?
Pop takes her hand. She mustn’t worry, it’s okay. ‘Wig,’ he shows with his mouth. It’s just a wig.
‘Get out, get out of here!’ Lambert shouts, but he can’t pull himself up.
He must rest, Pop says, they’ve just come to see how things are going with him.
‘My boy.’ That’s what Pop says to him.
‘Ja, old boy,’ Treppie says. Lambert must just calm down, they only came to say happy birthday and good morning and viva Lambert and he must look, there’s some coffee on the table for him, he can’t say his uncle doesn’t have his best interests at heart.
Pop picks up Lambert’s boxer shorts in front of the cabinet. Here, he says, put on some decent clothes. Pop picks up things lying around and then lets go of them again. He picks up the fallen-over chairs. Their chairs. Hers still looks okay, but Pop’s chair looks like someone broke its back. Its one arm is loose. Pop pushes the little peg under the arm-rest back into its hole. Poor old chair!
Now Lambert’s got his shorts on, but he can’t get his balance. Her too, she also feels paralysed.
She must come and sit, says Treppie. He pulls up her chair. He even makes as if he’s dusting off the cushions, just for her. Full of tricks. Never before has Treppie pulled up a chair for her. She’ll only sit when and if she herself decides to. She’ll first stand here for a bit, although that tarantula made her legs feel like jelly. Now Lambert’s drinking his coffee. He goes ‘shlurrrp!’ as he drinks. Now she’ll sit. But just on the edge.
‘We thought we’d leave straight away last night, so you could have some privacy,’ Pop says, trying to soft-soap Lambert, but Lambert just says ‘Uh!’ like an ape.
Let her look at this hair again. Lots of curls that jump back quickly when you pull them out and then let go again. What’s this sticky stuff here? Sis!
Now Toby’s on the bed too, lock, stock and barrel. He wants to say, hullo, Lambert, but all he gets is a kick. He’s sniffing in the wrong place. Come, Toby, come sit here with your missus.
Lambert holds his head. He wipes the drops off his face, then he holds his head again.
She must go look in the kitchen dresser, Pop says. There’s some Panado there. And while she’s in the house she can bring a towel so Lambert can dry himself off.
Maybe Pop wants to talk to Lambert on his own. He tells Treppie to take Molletjie and go and buy a Coke at Ponta do Sol. Lambert’s Cokes are finished. But Treppie doesn’t want to. He wants to be here so he can hear the father-to-son talk. Her too, she also wants to hear it. She stands behind the door and peeps through the chink. But Pop says nothing. He says if Treppie’s got something to say, then he must say it now. All he wants to say is that he’s here to support Lambert.
Lambert needs more than fucken support, Treppie says. All the Panados in the world won’t take Lambert’s headache away. And all the Cokes under the sun won’t change the facts. And he, Treppie, thinks that what Lambert needs after a night like last night is a beer. He’s sure he can find a beer in one of these two fridges.
Facts, yes, she also wants to hear about those facts, but all she hears is ‘eeny-meeny-miny-mo’. It’s Treppie. She stretches her neck. He’s standing in front of the fridges, pointing to each one in turn as he says his rhyme to determine which one to open. It’s the Fuchs, the one that’s been burnt black all down the sides.
‘Lambert,’ he says. ‘This thing’s leaking again, isn’t it?’
Treppie tries to open the fridge. She can’t see him, but she can hear him pushing and pulling the fridge. Then there’s a ‘boom!’ Treppie almost falls right on to his backside. He’s pulled the door clean out of the fridge. Its rubbers hang down from the sides, burnt to cinders. ‘Kaboof,’ goes the door as Treppie throws it on to the floor. Now he must be looking into the open fridge ’cause he’s brushing soot and stuff from his face.
‘Jesus,’ says Treppie. ‘I thought I knew what a burn-out looked like, but this looks more like the eye of Etna!’
Who’s poor old Etna now? And why’s her eye burnt out? It doesn’t sound like a fact, it sounds more like a fairytale to her.
Did he stick his immersion heater into the Fuchs or something, Treppie asks Lambert. Or his dipstick? In that case he must have been overheating something terrible – no decency, as usual.
‘Or,’ says Treppie, ‘maybe it couldn’t take a service. Probably too old for servicing. And to think of all those leaks we had to weld! But some things are simply beyond redemption. Those kind of things just fuck out, anyway. Boom! But, well, we did our best, didn’t we, Lambert? And this kind of mistake happens in the best of families. Or what am I saying, hey, Pop?’
Let her go fetch the Panado. All this talking is just a lot of rubbish. She wants it to be tomorrow so they can go vote and get it over and done with. And if the house has to get painted, then let it get painted and be finished. Maybe they’ll all feel better and a bit stronger then. Hope springs eternal, Treppie always says, and as far as she can see, she’s the only one with any hope left, although she’s not sure she wants to put much hope on a white house. It’s really just the roof that matters. The rest is the rest. She almost feels like this year should start all over again. It’s been one long struggle to get everything fixed and ready. First this, then that, then the other thing. And for what? Sweet blow all! And there was nearly another disaster to top it all ’cause right at the last minute they went and shifted the election date all over the place as though it was a Shoprite trolley. First to the one side, then the other, and then the far side as well. Now there are no fewer than three days for the voting. Today, tomorrow, and the next day. And all of a sudden tomorrow’s a holiday, too. Wonder Wall sent them a letter saying they don’t work on holidays, so Treppie phoned them up – she was with him, at the Westdene public phone – and told them they must understand, nicely now, that this was an ad-hoc holiday, and a contract was a contract. They must watch their step, otherwise he’d take them to the small claims court. So they said, no, fine, sorry, they’d come.
Let her first go and see if it’s safe in the den. She can see neither Treppie nor Lambert. Just Pop, looking down at the floor. He’s puffing out clouds of smoke.
Now Treppie appears in the gap between the door and the frame. He’s taken a beer out of the Fuchs. Why does that beer can look like it’s got a bulge on one side? Treppie takes the beer to Lambert, going round the other side of the bed. ‘Down a Lion!’ is all she hears.
Right. If Lambert’s drinking beer, then he must be feeling better. She pushes open the door.
‘Watch out, Mol!’ It’s Pop. Now what? Why must she watch out all of a sudden? ‘Ka-pssshhhht!’ Treppie’s spraying Lambert full in the face with the beer, a long white jet, and she’s getting some of it too.
‘Oh, sis, God in heaven!’
Her front is full of foam and little white crumbs.
Lambert looks like he wants to murder Treppie, but he half falls over instead. That’s also why Treppie keeps standing there – he knows Lambert’s useless. Chuck that towel this side, he motions to her. Sis, now she smells of beer.
So sorry, Treppie says, passing Lambert the towel. Here, wipe off your face.
Ja, always so sorry, this Treppie. And what about her housecoat? Lambert sits up on the bed with his face in the towel. He doesn’t wipe off anything. He just sits there. But she can see his cheeks, they’re bulging, just like that beer can. Let her quickly put these Panados down where he can reach them, before he explodes like that beer. Once was enough, thank you.
Pop gets up. ‘Come,’ he says. ‘Let’s leave Lambert for a while so he can wake up
in peace.’
‘Ag never! He’s as strong as a horse, man.’
Treppie makes rude movements to show how strong Lambert is.
‘And horses like him usually have wonderful horsey-stories to tell, especially when they’ve had a birthday as good as old Lambert here’s just had.’
Pop must look, and she must look, Treppie says, Lambert’s having a big birthday, it’s a birthday for Africa. They must sit, here’s a chair, and here’s another, and there’s even a crate for him, ’cause now they’re going to visit nicely here with Lambert in his den, on his birthday.
She doesn’t visit where there’s vomit, she wants to say, but she says nothing. She can see he’s the one who wants to tell all the stories, not Lambert, even though he’s on a crate and not a pulpit. And when Treppie wants to tell stories, then you’d better just sit and listen, otherwise you don’t hear the end of it, especially when it’s a bullshit-story. Just listen how he’s lying to Lambert now about how the girl they found for him wasn’t just first choice. About how she was such a livewire, you could just see it immediately there in the showcase at Cleopatra’s Creole Queens. That’s what makes Treppie’s bullshit-stories so terrible. They’re not outright lies, they’re semi-lies he builds on to. And it’s not like he first tells the truth and then adds on at the end. He lies all the way through the story, as far as he goes, and after a while you don’t know what’s what any more. Now he’s saying she was a livewire in a showcase, a dynamo and a back-kicker and a high-powered escort and a Voortrekker of a woman – with enough volts to set Lambert’s compass permanently due north.
And all Pop said about her was that she was a livewire on a street corner. Period.
So what was the truth about her, then?
Cinderella, says Treppie. A Cinderella who wanted to cross the Drakensberg mountains on bare feet, together with Prince Lambertus the Third. And does Lambert perhaps know where her other shoe is? Or maybe they can find this one’s heel and give it back to her tonight. Once she’s had a chance to catch her breath, that is.
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