The Inside Out Man

by Fred Strydom

  The old man at the door doesn’t seem to have a problem with this thing behind him, which may even be some kind of house pet. The man pulls his head back and grips me by the shoulders to get a good look at my face. His eyes dart from feature to feature. “My, my. Yes,” he says. “Remarkable. Unmistakable.”

  I walk inside.

  He tells me he’s an uncle I’ve never met, and that he was once a university professor. A specialist in graph theory.

  Instead of grisly paintings, I see a collection of beautiful black-and-white photos showing famous musicians, a sleek trumpet—and an infinite line of piano keys. The doors of the rooms are partially closed, and I hear the wails and sobs of men and women, all dressed in black. But I can’t take a closer look, not with that thing filling the house, swelling with every passing moment.

  “The numbers,” says this elegantly revised version of my neighbour, as he smiles beneath red eyes that well with tears. “The numbers have stopped coming, and oh, how we miss the numbers. We can’t go on without the numbers. So, if you don’t mind, of course, would you do us the favour?”

  I nod.

  That’s when he leads me to the piano room.

  And that’s when I woke up.

  17.

  Sunday was difficult. I’d played so much my repertoire was running thin. The day before, the phone had rung every hour to give me a break, but on the Sunday, nada. Sweat poured from my forehead as I hammered the keys, as my eyes darted expectantly to the phone. The veins in my hands bulged like well-fed snakes. Any minute now, I told myself, they’d call, let me off the hook for a few minutes. Thank me for my time.

  Any second now.

  My wrists were straining. The walls of the room were shrinking. I gritted my teeth. I didn’t care about the money in the bank account. I didn’t care about whatever Fry was getting up to with his guests. I felt a sharp and intense hatred, like a knife to the gut. I’d been playing for hours, and I wanted out. Had enough. Each piano key was like a small closed door. Each finger, a pounding fist. Each note, a scream. And just before I was about to say fuck it, go to hell, Fry, I’m done—

  Ring-ring.

  I stopped playing, didn’t answer the phone. I let it ring as I hung over the keys and looked at my swollen, trembling hands. Blisters and bruises. The phone continued to cry like a spoilt child, demanding of my attention. Then I picked up the receiver.

  Thank you. That’ll be all.

  18.

  I stood beside the bed, rolling my clothing and packing each item into my bag. After straightening the bedding, I shut the windows overlooking the bland wilderness. I headed out the door and took one last walk to the piano room to see if I’d left anything behind. On my way out, I peeked into the mattress room. Everyone had left. It was empty. All cleaned up, with no sign anyone had been there at all. It looked like nothing more than a large living room, with its crescent of brown sofas facing three empty fireplaces.

  I stepped inside the room. The wooden floors creaked beneath my shoes. The room smelt of sweat and lavender. My eyes flitted from corner to corner, and I imagined that any moment I’d be ambushed by a Mardi Gras of masked characters—large feathered figures with their cocks and tits hanging out, incanting as they stripped me naked and strung me up in a ritual sacrifice.

  I drew aside a thick velvet curtain and looked outside. The day was grey. Dull, shapeless clouds stretched on forever. Below, long black cars were making their way along the gravelly road to the main gate. The procession was slow, with cars following one another at consistent intervals. The party was done; the weekend pantomime was over.

  The pantomime of regular life, however, was about to resume.

  So, I take it you’ll be off soon.

  I spun round. Leonard was standing in the doorway, spinning a milky drink around in a tumbler.

  That was the plan, I said, hoisting my bag.

  He nodded, downing his drink as he moseyed across the shiny floor.

  I can only imagine what you must think of all this, he said, waving the tumbler in the air. Of what we’ve been getting up to.

  You didn’t pay me to think. You paid me to play.

  No, sure, you’re right, he said, jutting out his bottom lip. But that doesn’t mean there weren’t a few thoughts on the matter. And wouldn’t it be fun, getting inside that head of yours. After all, it’s the great and secret wish, yes?

  What is?

  To know each other’s innermost thoughts, free of all the niceties, the diplomacy, the manners, and the fear of rejection, of being misunderstood. Complete and utter openness. All our dirty little thoughts and deepest desires on open display. Imagine that. Then I suppose we’d have to make our way through it all, through each other’s raw truth. He gestured to the window. Like entering that thick, white mist out there.

  I said nothing in response. All I could think of was something I’d heard once, that philosophy is the pastime of the privileged. For the rest of us, it’s all about survival.

  Do you have any plans tonight? Leonard asked.

  Not really.

  Ah. And then he paused. But I could tell more was coming as he seemed to ready himself for his next proposition. (I already had a bold No waiting in the wings.) Have you eaten recently?

  I’m okay, I replied.

  In truth, I hadn’t eaten in hours, and if pushed for a plan, that’d be it, to grab something greasy on the way home.

  Well, I wonder if you wouldn’t oblige a bored man a moment longer, he said. Any chance I could convince you to stay for dinner?

  I looked at my watch but the time was irrelevant.

  In fact, I insist, Leonard said, capitalising on my hesitation. My chef is making your favourite.

  How would you know what that is? I asked.

  I don’t, he said, smiling. But whatever it is, that’s what he’ll be making. Do we have a deal?

  Is that all you do?

  What’s that?

  Make deals?

  Leonard raised his empty glass. Isn’t that all any of us can do? Come. Put the bag down. Join me for dinner.

  I looked out the window again. The cars were gone, and the mist still hung heavy. It’d probably be better to wait until it cleared—and, even with my healthy new bank balance, it wasn’t as if I’d be having dinner in a mansion again any time soon.

  All right, I said. Beef enchiladas and refried beans.

  Excuse me?

  My favourite.

  Of course it is, Leonard said, picking out an ice cube and crushing it between his teeth.

  19.

  Leonard took me on a tour of the manor. As we walked along its many corridors, in and out of its countless rooms, he related its convoluted history.

  It had begun as a farm, he said—a stable, in fact—where a disillusioned soldier had retired long ago to breed horses. They were the healthiest and strongest in the region, and most were used in war. One day, the man got word that the enemy was stealing over the mountain to slaughter his horses. Upon hearing this, he led his finest stallion and two pregnant mares up to a cave, where he waited. The enemy arrived, and massacred his herd. Disembowelled, headless horses lay strewn across the grassland. In the aftermath of the killing, the stables were razed to the ground.

  At the bottom of a winding staircase, we came to the east-wing conservatory. We walked inside, and Leonard continued with the story. At the start of the last century, the manor was built as a halfway house for travelling officials and politicians. But even then, this place was filled with awfulness, Leonard remarked. The cover-up of a murdered whore. The ambush of a Zulu leader. The signing away of future generations. One could say the house is cursed, he said. It’s like a filter. Anything that passes through here has its goodness removed, and the residue, what’s left—the distilled evil of a person, of an ambition, of a plan—is spat out its doors and into the world.

  I found Leonard’s account simultaneously fascinating and absurd. I watched him closely as he spoke, the way his hands rose and fell,
pointing at this and that. Like a child speaking feverishly, caught up in some myth of his own making. Or like a madman, prophesying the end of the world with an intensity that made you look to the sky, just in case.

  After the politicians, he went on, the manor was used as a hotel for almost thirty years. And then the owner hanged himself in his bedroom. Debt management, Leonard said firmly. He took me to the garage and showed me his cars. Six machines lined up like showgirls. An Aston Martin in British racing green. A gun-metal Jag. A black Lincoln, a yellow Mustang, a vintage Rolls-Royce, and, lastly, an elephantine SUV.

  As we walked between the cars, the story continued. The house stood vacant for almost ten years before being converted into a rehab centre for rich crackheads, junkies, and drunks. Sometime later, a high-profile sex scandal put an end to that. The house passed through the hands of two private owners—one died of a stroke, while the other went head first through the windscreen of a speeding truck—and then there was Leonard and his millions, ready to have a go.

  I asked what could possibly have drawn him to a house with such a history. He climbed into the driver’s seat of the Mustang, stroked the wheel, and said, A ludicrously fast car. A beautiful woman. There’s nothing quite as alluring as the one you’ve been warned about, is there?

  20.

  Leonard guided me through the rest of the house. At the back, I was surprised to find a pier jutting out over a lake. He continued to talk about the history and the architecture, but my interest was waning. I humoured him anyway. I tagged along as we passed between the poolside chairs, which were still draped in damp, crumpled towels. We walked the length of the long outside bar counter, overflowing with half-empty bottles and tiny pink umbrellas. Stepping back into the house through the reading room, I saw piles of books stacked like skyscrapers of a miniature metropolis. Scanning his library, I was reminded of the painting I’d seen in the lobby, the one of the boy standing in the doorway with the deathly pale woman sprawled on the bed. I wanted to know where Leonard had got it, but then what? Would I come right out, ask him why it reminded me of stumbling upon my mother’s body in precisely that pose?

  Leonard took a remote from his inside jacket pocket, pressed it, and the lights flickered three times.

  And that? I asked, remembering how they had periodically flickered all weekend.

  That’s how I get the attention of Carl, he said. He’s gone completely deaf, but there’s nobody who can do what he does. He cooks like a Michelin chef. Knows how I like to do things, and when I like to do them. And I trust him. That’s the important thing. He’s like family. So I had the lights fixed. Three flickers, I’m in the west wing; two, I’m in my room; and one, I’m in the east.

  This explained the flickering. But I was puzzled. I asked whether it wouldn’t have made sense for Carl to receive his messages on a phone.

  I tried, Leonard said. But the man’s eighty-three years old, tough as tripe. He wouldn’t know what to do with a phone. Hates them. No, he prefers it this way. The lights. Pen and paper. And he manages just fine.

  Minutes later, Carl waddled into the room. He was a short, stocky old man with a bald head and skin like the grey sand of a shitty beach. One that got no sun. He handed Leonard a notepad and a pencil and Leonard scribbled his instructions. Then Carl left, and Leonard pointed at the doorway, ushering me into the next part of the house, the next part of the story.

  21.

  As promised, we were served beef enchiladas and refried beans for dinner. The luscious mess arrived on silver tableware that was clearly from a more elegant era. Carl had laid the table in the dining room, where he filled our bulbous glasses with red wine and left. Leonard held his glass to the light and voiced his appreciation of Chilean Cabernet. He professed to enjoy local wines, as well as those from Australia and New Zealand, but he wasn’t really a fan of old-world varietals. He found French wine particularly boring. All those years of tradition and reputation had inhibited the French harvesters; they were reluctant to experiment, to try anything new, and you could taste their conservatism. Their fear. Chileans, on the other hand, had no reputation to uphold. No real legacy. They were free to do anything they wished, and thus, their wine was more surprising, more complex, and, most notably, delicious.

  I nodded, gave the wine a swirl, then downed it like Coke. He asked me what I thought of the food, since it was my favourite, and I said it was pretty damn good. In truth, I was hardly a connoisseur of Mexican food, but Leonard deferred to me as if I’d combed the globe for the ultimate spicy wrap. Little did he know that most of my dinners came from hole-in-the-wall outlets in buildings scheduled to be demolished, or grimy grills near bars and clubs. Sandwiches marked with thumbprints. Sausages fried into rubbery oblivion. And none of this ever bothered me much.

  Tell me a bit about yourself, Leonard said.

  What do you want to know?

  Do you have any family?

  I thought about my father in his grave, his flesh collapsing under his morgue make-up. I had no face to put to the corpse, so I conjured up an image of some generic dead guy. White wispy hair. Pale skin. Worm food.

  In reply to Leonard’s question, I shook my head and shovelled in another forkful.

  Do you have a girlfriend? he persisted. A wife?

  No.

  With a glug of wine, I washed down my food. Leonard grabbed the bottle and refilled my glass. He stared at me for a moment, and then returned to his meal, cutting his wrap into several bite-sized portions. All perfectly equal in size.

  Tell me, Bent, what is it that you want out of this life?

  I’m not sure. To keep going, I suppose.

  Keep going?

  To survive.

  Yes, survival. We do what we can, don’t we?

  I tore my eyes away from his gaze and said, Looks like you’ve overshot the mark a bit.

  You could say that, chief. Leonard smiled. I know people dream of having the things I have. Of doing the things I’ve done. After all, at one point, I dreamt about wanting it, and that’s why I find myself here. In this big house. Surrounded by my things. He sat back in his chair, paused. In fact, there’s very little I haven’t done, very few places I haven’t been. Of course, there are always new toys out there, but it seems I’ve lost my appetite. I’ve run the gauntlet on clichés, chief. Stayed at the finest hotels in the world, thrown parties in sky-high penthouses. Leaning forward, he said, I’ve slept with women, lots of women, every type.

  Again he paused, and again I said nothing.

  I own houses on four continents. Don’t mistake this for boasting. That’s not my intention. I’ve lived my share of several lifetimes. I could probably live a few more. But it wouldn’t matter, because all of it has been to attempt … well, the unattemptable.

  And what would that be? I asked.

  Leonard lay his knife and fork neatly on his plate, and forced a small smile. He took a breath and folded his arms across his chest.

  I appreciate what you did for me this weekend, he said. You were superbly professional. I’ve had musicians before. Things have got messy at times, but you, you did your part. You played wonderfully!

  Just did what you paid me to do, I said.

  Sure, sure. But aren’t you curious about what was going on here?

  I was at first, I said.

  And now?

  Not so much.

  Because you already know the answer, he said. I mean, what else could it be? Sex and drugs and food and drink. Right? Right. His voice dropped as he continued, The same as always. It’s unimaginative. That, and there’s also the one conundrum none of us can ever solve, no matter how hard we try …

  I asked, What conundrum?

  That no matter what we do, where we go, or who we’re with, we can’t escape ourselves. Our own physical presence in every moment. I can’t sleep with a woman as someone else, can I? I can’t travel somewhere without me being there.

  He looked up, a forlorn look on his face. There are cheats; there are drugs,
but still, it’s not the kind of solution I’m talking about. It’s quick and it’s easy and superficial. There’s no depth to it because it isn’t earned, it isn’t permanent, and after a while, well, the drugs don’t work in quite the same way. So, what’s left? Me. Just me. Always. Wherever I go. It’s a cruel joke. And like I said, I’ve lost my appetite.

  I had finished my meal and my glass was empty. Leonard suddenly seemed very small in his gigantic dining room. The shadows around us obscured old lamps and books and various antique ornaments. The walls loomed high, and my eye caught an enormous painting of people having a picnic in a park. For a moment I imagined Leonard sitting alone in that cavernous room, eating dinner and staring into that painting, imagining himself there, in it, together with the group. The little girl with the kite. The man with the hat, reading a book under a tree. The two boys with paper boats at the water’s edge. And in the background, a man in a coat, out of place and solitary, standing with his hands in his pockets. His face hidden—

  Right then, something odd occurred: the man on his own—the man I’d just looked at—was now standing alongside a woman. Whether I’d initially missed her, or she’d suddenly, somehow, materialised, I couldn’t say. Whatever the case, there she stood, scarf around her neck, looking out towards the lake at a third boy in a striped beanie at the water’s edge, who was pointing to some geese.

  Leonard, oblivious to my long, dumb gazing, went on: Don’t get me wrong, please. I’m not interested in sympathy or pity. This is my problem and my problem alone. I expect no one to understand, and that’s just fine. The reason I’m telling you, however, is to prep you for what I’m going to say next … because I need to make one more deal. Perhaps the last one I’ll be making for a while. You see, I’m hoping to take a kind of … trip.