My Name Is Nathan Lucius

by Mark Winkler

  Here comes the smile.

  “Hungry, sweetheart?” Sonia says to her. The smile spreads. Yumna smiles back and widens her eyes and nods. So innocent. You’d think she’d have learnt by now. “Don’t you think it would benefit all of us if you were hungry on your own time? Instead of expecting everyone to wait for you?”

  Yumna’s smile dissolves. She sits and looks down at the desk and mumbles something.

  I don’t have to listen to Sonia. Two things, three things, five things. We’re short of our targets, the paper is under increasing pressure, our web offering isn’t yet strong enough to compensate. Generally we’re all a bunch of lazy arseholes who are completely out of touch with the real world. Three more things. And so on. Yumna stares at the muffin on the table. I replay Madge’s message in my head. She’s left me messages at odd hours before. Perhaps I’m imagining a difference in her voice this time. Some tonal shift. Or a slurring as if she was drunk. I hold my phone under the table and text her to see if she’s okay. I don’t expect a reply. I know she only ever turns her cellphone on when she needs to make a call.

  Sonia breaks off the bollocking of her crew. The smile returns. “Nathan? Something more important on the go?”

  “Sorry, family issues.” I hit send and put the phone on the table. Sonia glares at me. She knows that I have as much to do with family as penguins do with polar bears. At least she has the grace not to raise this. Many people don’t know that penguins and polar bears live at opposite ends of the world. That they have about as much in common as macaques and English sheepdogs. Sonia finishes the meeting by congratulating Sarel on securing a big placement. It’s her idea of motivation. To end on a thirty-second positive after a half-hour’s bollocking. All it does is piss everyone else off. Sarel is younger than me. He’s spends a lot of time at the gym. He’s partial to the kind of blond highlights beloved of twink gays and Afrikaans rugby players. How he’s convinced anyone to place even a classified ad in that accent of his is beyond me.

  Sonia lets us go. I’m behind her as we walk to our cubicles. I put on my silly-cheerful face. “Morning, boss,” I say. She doesn’t turn around. She’ll get over it. Just not right now, I guess.

  I have an email message from Ally. Almost sixty and still heads up media at a big ad agency. Most are finished by then. Fried, broken. Looking far older than they actually are. Opening coffee shops or living in Kalk Bay with their cats. For some reason Ally always gets hold of me personally when she has something big on the way. I call her. There’s an English bank that’s bought big chunks of a South African one, she tells me. More than that she’s not allowed to say. I don’t care who’s bought whom. She tells me that their ad agency has commissioned a six-week launch campaign for the rebranding. Cover wraps and double-page spreads for starters, full pages to follow. Page takeovers and rich media to dominate the financial section of our website. She starts talking media-strategist stuff like ARs and ROI and reach and frequency. All I want from her is a budget and a brief. I let her talk. It’s important to make her feel important. A shadow passes over my desk. Dino’s on his way to visit Sonia. Even though it’s Monday and Mondays are always frantic, I know she’ll let him lie in her chair. He’ll fill her cubicle with armpits and noise for half an hour or so. The crossbow death was a Chinese mafia hit, Dino starts saying. The cops have confirmed it. He can’t quote them just yet. He’s hardly greeted her. Blah blah blah he goes. Yak yak yak. If he doesn’t shut up I’m going to miss the point where I have to respond to Ally. I stand up with the phone wedged between my ear and my shoulder. Dino’s natter skips a syllable as I poke my head over the cubicle divider. Then he starts yapping again. I raise a hand, point to the phone on my shoulder, put a finger to my lips. Sonia looks around to see what’s going on. I stick my tongue out at her. Dino shuts up and I sit down.

  Ally gives me the budget. It’s probably good that I’m sitting again. Sonia may remember campaigns with budgets that size. I don’t. Ally mails her brief to me while she’s talking. Says she knows it’s crazy timing. Says she really needs a preliminary proposal first thing in the morning to present to the client and the agency.

  It’s not crazy. It’s impossible.

  No problem, I say.

  What’s with ad agencies, I wonder. Everything is always a last-minute panic. As though every job is a total surprise to them. As though the people who populate the agencies were born at exactly five that morning. Every morning. Or as if years of experience were erased by a simple night’s sleep and they had to start each day from scratch. Dino’s shadow goes the other way as Ally says goodbye. He must be bored with not talking. Sonia comes to stand at the entrance to my cubicle. She has taken off her jacket and stands with her arms crossed under her boobs. They’re not very big. I can see she’s impatient. I prolong the goodbyes. Then I end the call and dial Tammy at reception.

  “What was that all about?” Sonia asks.

  I hold my hand up. I wait for Tammy to answer. I tell her to put my calls through to Yumna. I know that will make Sonia bristle. I put the phone down and lean back in my chair and put my hands behind my head, Dino style. I swivel to face Sonia. Splay my legs.

  “Wow,” I say.

  “Wow what?” she says. She’s starting to look like she needs to pee.

  I purse my lips. Let out a long slow puff. “I’m going to need your help with this,” I tell her.

  “With fucking what?” she says. I smile and turn back to my computer and open the Excel document that Ally has sent me. I hit the print button. Close the document. Stand and squeeze myself past Sonia. Go and wait at the printer. Sonia follows me. Her arms are still crossed. I whistle softly as I wait. Drum on the beige plastic of the printer with my fingernails. They’re not as clean as they might be. I make a fuss of gathering the pages together. I staple them at a corner. For once the stapler actually has staples in it. Sonia seems about to burst.

  “Come,” I say. She follows me to the boardroom. I close the door.

  “Christ on a crutch, Nathan.”

  I point to a chair. She sits down. I flick through the printout as I walk round the table. Raise my eyebrows and shake my head. I sit opposite her and toss the papers across the table. She doesn’t go through them. Just stares at the summary on the cover page. There come the nipples.

  “Wow,” she says.

  It’s just gone nine-thirty. The only way to finish the proposal is to work through the night. I call Madge. For a long time there’s no answer. The phone cuts off. My scrotum shrivels. I dial again.

  “Hello?” she says. Her voice catches on the o. She clears her throat. I tell her that I won’t be able to visit her today. “Oh, that’s fine,” she says. “It’s not a big deal.” I can hear that it is, though. On any other Monday I would have snuck out to see her. The shop is just down the way, two minutes’ walk if you’re dawdling. I hardly ever have the urge to prove myself to my employers. I know that when I do I’d better make the most of it.

  Sonia ropes in Sarel. I’m happy for him to be working on my commission. I give him the digital stuff to do. It’s complicated and boring. Mostly I don’t get it. As soon as I think I’ve got it, everything changes again.

  At seven Dino comes down. Finds the three of us in the boardroom. We’re hunched over laptops. There are papers all over the table. We’ve got a long way to go. Already we’re taking turns at making coffee. We use clean mugs each time. There’s a small army of dirty ones at the end of the table. Soon there’ll be a standoff. Once there are no more clean mugs, the next coffee-maker is going to have to wash some old ones.

  Dino surveys the chaos. “What are you kids up to?”

  Sarel’s eyes are fixed on his laptop. Sonia looks up blankly. She does that when she’s concentrating on something.

  “Paying your salary,” I say.

  Sonia flicks a look at me.

  “Good,” Dino says. I’m impressed that he doesn’t
get all defensive. “Have fun,” he says.

  I look at Sonia. She’s staring at her laptop. I know she can feel me looking at her.

  At eleven Sonia orders pizza. I suggest a six-pack or two as a side order. Sonia snorts and orders a two-litre Coke.

  Just after two Sarel asks a question about audience ratings. He says “arse” instead of ARs. Not even the most junior person would make a mistake like that. Sonia and I know it’s just the exhaustion. We all start giggling like kids. Not because arse is a rude word. It’s even funnier because he said, “What are the arse?” English verbs and subjects not agreeing is a very Afrikaans thing. It takes a while before we stop laughing. We have tears running down our faces. When we stop we’re all a little embarrassed. Our defences have dropped far lower than we’d have liked. Sarel’s mistake wasn’t that funny.

  Just before four Sonia loses the standoff and goes to wash mugs.

  By seven-thirty nothing is funny any more. Sarel nods off as we’re reviewing the proposal. Sonia snaps at him to grow up. We struggle to tell if the proposal is good or bad or ugly. I call Ally and she answers the phone half-asleep. I tell her we’re about to send the proposal and that she needs to go over it right away and get back to us if she wants anything changed before her meeting. I email her the document. We wait. If I have another cup of coffee I’m going to throw up. By nine we’ve heard nothing from her. I call her cellphone. It’s off. I call the office number. The receptionist sounds like she had a good night’s sleep. All perky and friendly. She says that Ally is in a meeting. I leave a message for her. Ally phones at ten. Says that she’s received the proposal. Says she hasn’t had time to go over it. It’s not a problem, she says. The client presentation has been postponed to Wednesday. The breeziness in her voice makes me want to reach through the phone and do terrible things to her. I’m thinking Freddy Krueger. My job is something I deal with. It’s like eating or shitting. You do it because you do it. Sometimes you get caught short. Sometimes I thoroughly hate it. I put my phone down. “It’s a pleasure,” I say to it.

  I’m sure Sonia’s going to make it all my fault. She doesn’t. She’s bigger than that. She’s been through this before.

  “Fucking bitch,” Sonia says. “Let’s go home.” Sarel has fallen asleep in Dino’s chair. He isn’t a snorer. Sonia kicks him on the ankle. He jerks as he wakes up.

  As I leave the building I realise that something has happened to me. The world is sharp and bright. The leaves of the trees in the mall are green crystals in some kind of luminous fluid. The fluid makes every colour brighter. Every shape clearer. The nausea of a sleepless night slides away from me. I could prove a theorem right now. Win a court case. Understand wormholes. It’s not the first time I’ve stayed up all night. I know the lucidity will pass soon enough.

  I visit Madge before it does. I need to make amends for standing her up. Her security gate is open. The door behind it is locked. I press the bell. Hear a chime. I wait. If she’d gone out she would have locked the gate. I ring again. Nothing. I go down St. George’s, turn left into Church Street. Halfway between Church and Burg is the gate to the back alley. Madge gave me two keys after she learnt that the cancer wouldn’t go away. “I don’t want to be found three-quarters rotten after three days,” she’d said. One key opens the lock on the alleyway gate. The alley is only slightly wider than my shoulders. The other key opens the back door to her shop. It’s darker in the shop than in the alley. I can hear Satie’s weird piano from inside. The piece ends and starts again. For a few moments I can see nothing.

  Then I see Madge sitting in her rocking chair. She has a hand in her lap. The other hangs over the armrest and points to the floor. Her head lolls on a shoulder. Fuck no, I think. What are you supposed to do? Run out waving your arms and calling people. Like Tintin, Help, help! Au secours, au secours! I go up to her. I put my ear close to her face. I hear her breathe. Soft and regular and smelling of medicine and sleep and sour stuff. All the tiredness of the night floods back into me. I take her shoulder. It’s made of little panels and plates of bone.

  “Madge,” I say.

  She looks around as if she has woken up on the ocean floor. Her eyes find me and try to focus. She has been drooling in her sleep. It’s left dark patches on the orange scarf around her neck. She reaches out a hand. She takes my arm. Her hand is dry and cold.

  “Nate,” she whispers. “I was dreaming.”

  “What were you dreaming of?”

  She blinks. “I don’t know,” she says. “Goodness.” I stand gaping. She slides the tissue from under her watch strap and dabs at the side of her face. “Dribbling like an imbecile,” she says.

  “Happens to the best of us,” I say. The words are empty. They don’t help her embarrassment. I offer to make tea. She accepts, probably to give herself time to compose herself. I go to the kitchen and put on the kettle. I bring out the cracked cups and a little jug of milk. She’s standing beside her chair with her hands clutching her sides. As if she’s trying to hold in the pain. She looks towards the door. Shakes her head.

  “Bugger the customers,” she says and sits down.

  I pour the tea, babble about the night’s work. Moan about the irritation of the postponement after all the effort we’d put in.

  Then I remember that she wanted to tell me something. I ask her what it was. She picks up her cup. She tells me.

  I’ve had a life that’s been amazing

  “I’ve had a life that’s been amazing, both for the experiences I’ve had and because of its ordinariness,” Madge says. I’m not liking the past tense. My cup has a network of fine cracks on it. I wonder why the tea doesn’t leak through them. “And now I’ve had enough.”

  I look up at her and she’s smiling. It’s the kind of smile you have when you’ve achieved an almightily brilliant solution to a problem. Like deciding to consolidate your debt. Or to buy a house. Or to get married. I’ve never had to do any of those things. I’m just saying.

  “The trouble is, I can’t,” she says.

  I blink. The all-nighter is getting to me. I’m not following.

  “I can’t die, Nathan.” She sips her tea and smiles. “I’m sicker than Jesus on the cross and every day I get sicker.” There’s no self-pity, just fact. “I’ve stopped taking the drugs and seeing the doctor. Every day the pain is worse. I understand why cancer is a crab. It’s got claws, and every day it tears more pieces out of me. Just little bits. Just enough to increase the pain and the humiliation. Not quite enough to finish me off.”

  She puts her tea down. She stands up and presents her profile to me. She smacks the top of her butt with a hand. “Do you think my bum looks big in this?” she says. Again I am lost. Madge has never had a big bum. She laughs. She pats herself again. “Incontinence knickers, Nate. There’s nothing about my body I can trust any more. Look.” She points to an antique chamber pot under her rocking chair. I’d never noticed it. There are a lot of things in her shop I’ve never seen before. “NFS,” she says. “Not For Sale. Strictly FMP. For My Puke. Because when I need to, there’s no time to run for the john. Not fun when you’re in the salad aisle at Woolworths.” She sits down. “And when I get home and take off my happy clothes”—she picks at her cerise sleeves and the puckered cloth flowers on the bodice—“I peel off my giant adult nappy, not sure what I’ll find in there.”

  She lifts her cup and puts it down again. She looks hard at me.

  “If it’s full, I lie on my back on the floor with a big plastic bowl of soapy water next to me. Then I raise my legs like a baby and wash myself. Sometimes I miss a few spots.” She takes her tissue from her watchstrap. She hands it to me. It’s still wet with her drool. I don’t care. “The crab is here,” she says and puts a hand on her abdomen. “And here.” She moves her hand to cover her liver. She moves it to the left. “Here.” She places her hand on one breast and then the other. “Here and here.” She puts two fingers on her te
mple. “Soon it will be here. And still I can’t die. I very much want to die before it gets here.” She taps the fingers against her skull. Hard. She drops her hand to her lap. I look at her. She’s never spoken of her cancer like this. I haven’t slept for almost thirty hours. It’s not helping me in any way at all. My bitching about working through the night comes back. There’s nothing like a bit of perspective to make you blush. Madge doesn’t notice.

  “So,” she says, “I’d like you to help me.” She drains her teacup.

  “What do you want me to do?” I ask.

  “Kill me, Nate,” she says. “Kill me.” She puts down her cup. Looks at me. Her eyes are flat and cold as a seagull’s. “You love me, don’t you?”

  So I was looking for a sandwich

  So I was looking for a sandwich at lunchtime when I first met Madge. There was a recliner outside her shop. She was lying in it. The recliner had simple chrome lines and black leather upholstery. It had a sign saying “Special, Biedermeier, R5000.” The sign was written in black marker on exam-pad paper with punched holes along one side. It was stuck to the armrest with the kind of tape that is yellowish and shiny. Madge was smoking a long thin cigarette. The cigarette was in a long thin holder. Her eyes were closed. As if that cigarette was the best thing she’d ever experienced. She was dressed almost like a twenties flapper. The North Star high-tops spoiled the effect. I couldn’t help myself. I stopped.