by Mark Winkler
I stand up and ask the man if I can borrow his paper for a minute. Mrs. du Toit is in mid-sentence. He hands me the scruffy bundle. Tells me to keep it.
Mrs. du Toit has gone quiet. She seems a little peeved. She picks up her coffee cup and looks away from me. Of course I know what the lead story is about. Dino has his by-line. The plan needs a few finishing touches now. I read for a moment. I let the newspaper fall. I put one hand to my mouth and then the other. The movement catches Mrs. du Toit’s attention. Mrs. du Toit stops sulking. She puts down her cup and leans forward.
“What is it?” she asks. Her hand is on my forearm.
“Madge,” I say. My voice is hoarse. And then I put on my crying face and my shoulders heave.
I’m sobbing in her car. I don’t know why. I can’t stop. It’s like somebody else’s face has been laid over mine. The face is crying without me and it won’t let up. I have the hem of my T-shirt to my nose. I lower it. It’s full of snot and tears. “I’m sorry,” I say. In her flat she pulls the T-shirt off me. She puts me onto her bed. It’s too hot to get under the covers. I’m still wearing my shorts. I can feel Madge’s scarf in my pocket. Mrs. du Toit brings me a glass of water and two pills.
“They’ll help,” she says. “Trust me, I know.”
I swallow them. I hear her leave the flat and come back with her shopping. There’s rustling and clattering as she unpacks the bags. I lift an arm. It falls back onto the bed. My other arm is just as heavy. So are my legs. Madge has gone far away. The whole of me feels strange. It’s not like beer. Or Madge’s whisky. It’s like I’m being played at an octave lower than normal. Like I’ve always been a violin and now I’m a cello. I try to lift my cello head. My neck has turned to jelly. If I’m so heavy why am I floating six inches off the bed, I wonder. Mrs. du Toit comes in. The yellow dress has a neon aura. She kicks off her shoes. Sits next to me.
“Better?” she asks.
I nod. I think I nod.
“Tell me about Madge,” she says. Sonia knows about Madge. She knows that I used to visit her sometimes. That she was sick. It’s pretty much all she knows about me I’m sure. Outside of work, at least. I tell Mrs. du Toit things that Sonia has never known. About our buying trips. How we loved confusing onlookers about our relationship. How we shared bedrooms at B&Bs. I tell Mrs. du Toit about the calm of tea in a cracked cup and stale biscuits. I tell her that Madge had absolutely no idea about antiques. I can’t remember when last I told anyone so much. I’m not sure if I ever have. Mrs. du Toit says hardly anything. I stop talking. She probably thinks I’ve told her everything. Of course I haven’t. She goes to the bathroom. I hear bathwater. She comes to the bedroom. She takes off her yellow dress. She takes off her underwear. I watch. I feel nothing. After her bath she climbs onto the bed. She curls up next to me and strokes my forehead. I think I fall asleep. I think I sleep all through Sunday. It doesn’t matter.
It’s just another day.
Everyone is talking
Everyone is talking about the story Dino broke on the weekend. Madge Cartwright murdered not a hundred metres from the newspaper office. A botched robbery. An unlikely suspect arrested and released. Some old guy working at a city hotel. Another man has also been arrested. He is to be charged soon. I marvel at how Dino has managed to fill so many column-centimetres with so little.
Is it ironic that Madge was dying anyway? I try to remember the proper definition of irony. I can’t. The news report is thin on detail.
“Why don’t you go home,” Sonia says. “You look like shit.”
I tell her that I’ll feel worse at home. “I’d rather go and speak to the cops,” I say. “I was there on Friday afternoon. That’s why I came to Eric’s so late.”
Sonia looks at me funny.
“For Christ’s sake,” I say. “We had tea. I left. There was a guy who couldn’t decide what he wanted. I got bored.” And then I ducked out and came back through the alleyway, I don’t say. Waited for the boy to pay for his tortoise and leave. Strangled Madge with her scarf. This scarf right here in my pocket. What the security cameras would have seen is me leaving well before the boy. Looking up as if to check the weather.
I get the detective’s name and number from Dino. I call Inspector Morris. I don’t want him to come to the paper. I walk to Caledon Square. It takes the charge office half an hour to find him. I wait at the counter. The skin of my forearms sticks to its surface. The paint is peeling from the walls. Posters are peeling from the paint. The linoleum is peeling from the floor. People come and go. They all look small and furtive and broken. Or like they should be on the other side of the counter, in a holding cell. A young woman comes in. She explains that her car has been broken into. The constable behind the desk sighs. He bends down to get something from under the counter. A yellow folder. Some forms. A notepad. The young woman’s face goes red. I need to pee. I’m worried that if I go to the bathroom I’ll miss Inspector Morris. The constable starts asking the woman questions. He writes slowly. The pen looks uncomfortable in his hand. “No, I did not give anyone permission to break into my car,” the woman shrieks. With each plosive, white flecks fly from her mouth. She is spitting all over the constable. “What the hell kind of a question is that?”
I am ushered into a room to meet Morris. I’m expecting a tough Cockney from a BBC cop show. I suppose it’s the name. Morris has a heavy Afrikaans accent. It would be a mistake to associate the accent with stupidity. People have done that before. I’m not going to. The room is so small that he has to squeeze himself against the wall to get around the table. He sits opposite me. He thanks me for coming. I put my sad face on. I tell him the facts as I’d told them to Mrs. du Toit.
“So you’ve known the deceased for . . . ?”
“Four or five years,” I tell him.
“And how did your friendship begin?”
“I work not too far from her shop,” I tell him. “We talked about antiques. She was flamboyant and dramatic and interesting. She knew nothing about antiques.” The personal note is a good touch. Tears come to my eyes. “I found it amusing. We started having tea together. I would go and see her after work. Even on a weekend sometimes.”
“Forgive me, I have to ask. Was there anything, ah, inappropriate about your relationship?”
“Goodness, no.” I sound just like Madge.
Morris wants to know about Friday. I tell him that I left work early and went to see her. That we chatted and had tea. That we were so preoccupied she forgot to close up at five. That a man came in to the shop just as I was leaving. That I was off to join some colleagues at a bar down the Mall. That I wanted to speak to police once I heard about the murder because my fingerprints would be all over the shop.
Morris nods. He makes notes on his yellow pad. He asks me to describe the customer. I describe Groucho Marx.
“He says you were exceptionally rude to him,” Morris says.
I shrug. “He didn’t want to pay the going price for an item.”
“And?”
“And he left.”
“Did someone else come into the shop at any point?”
“Yes. A young man. Scruffy, wearing a hoodie. Skinny as a junkie. The other customer might have noticed him before leaving.”
“You left while the young man was in the shop?”
“Yes. I was late. It was more than just a drink with my friends. It was more like an after-work function. Informal. Still, you’re expected to pitch. I couldn’t wait any longer, so I left.”
“You didn’t feel that Miss Cartwright was at risk from this young man?”
“No. He seemed to be browsing like any other shopper. Anyway, he didn’t exactly start shooting up in the shop.”
Morris takes notes. I wonder how far to push my luck. I push.
“Do you think you have enough on him?” I ask.
Morris looks up. He is amused. I suppose it’s
my TV-programme language. “I can’t divulge anything. Maybe there’s something, maybe not. This police force isn’t the one I joined thirty years ago, so who knows.”
He stands up. Thanks me. I can’t see his thoughts. He tells me to “be available.” Tells me not to leave town. Laughs though his eyes don’t. He calls a constable to take my fingerprints. She leads me to another room. She isn’t very friendly. She has a long body and short legs. Or perhaps it’s just the uniform. The jacket hanging over her hips. The knee-length skirt and flat shoes. The room is remarkable for its smears of ink everywhere. She inks the tips of my fingers. Then she takes each fingertip and rolls it onto a sheet of paper. There’s a block for each finger. The ink is black and sticky. There’s a stained basin in the room. She waves me towards it. The tiles behind the basin are cracked and chipped and spattered with ink. There’s a plastic pot of petroleum jelly on the basin. I’m not sure what to do. The constable tells me to take some of the jelly and to clean my hands with it. I try this. The jelly smears the ink around my hands. There’s a single sheet of paper in the dispenser. It doesn’t help much. In seconds it’s soaked and black. The constable opens a drawer and hands me a piece of newspaper. On it is the continuation of Dino’s front-page story. The ink of the newspaper mixes with the ink on my hands.
Bugger the customers
“Bugger the customers,” I mutter. I drop my handful of soil onto the lid of the coffin. I feel a look from the man next to me. It’s Friday. Tuesday Wednesday Thursday smudged themselves together into one long forgettable day. Sonia has snuck me a day’s compassionate leave. She said I should have taken more time off. Said I’ve been “different.” There are lots of people at the funeral. Some are standing on their toes to see what’s going on. I’ve counted them, more or less. I stopped at sixty. It’s hot. I expected a handful. Six or seven acquaintances were what I’d imagined. Me the closest friend. I’m about the fortieth in line for the soil. I put my hand into my pocket and rub it clean on Madge’s scarf. Everyone seems to have known her better than I ever did. I can’t say how this makes me feel. They’re muttering little anecdotes and recollections among themselves. I never hear my name. Nobody asks me how I knew Madge. The herd begins to shuffle away from the graveside. The mourners are a motley lot. None of them are smartly dressed. All sandals and scruffy jeans and seventies dresses. I suspect professors with out-of-fashion Marxist leanings. Poets and minor novelists. Other antique-store owners. I look for the weaselly nephew. I don’t see him.
I consider skipping the wake. A true friend would attend. It’s at the house of a certain Bevan and his wife Sienna. About half of the mourners arrive. The house is in the older part of Mowbray. An old car is parked under a fig tree. It’s spattered with bird shit. Some of the shit calcified a long time ago. You wouldn’t be able to see through the windscreen. Or clean it even. Loose tiles sit askew on the roof of the house. A gutter sags. It has grass sprouting from it. Paint is quietly peeling from the walls. Inside, the furniture is chipped and scratched. Crocheted throws and faded kikois cover couches and chairs. Hiding torn upholstery and broken springs, I’m sure. Someone hands me a plate of coleslaw. The plate is chipped. There are raisins in the gluey grey tangle. The raisins have absorbed the liquid. They’re fat and black. Someone hands me a glass of white wine. It is warm and sour. I can’t eat the coleslaw while I’m holding a glass of wine. I put the plate down. Someone fills my glass again. She is younger than the rest of them.
“Thanks. I’m Nathan, by the way,” I tell her.
“Cindy,” she says. She has two glasses in one hand. The wine bottle is in the other. I shake the finger she holds out to me. “How did you know Madge?” she asks.
“From the shop,” I say.
“Oh, you’re that Nathan,” she says. “You were very kind to her towards the end.” It’s nice to get a mention. I hope Madge didn’t mention too much. I leave without saying goodbye to anyone. I walk around Mowbray for ages. I finally find a taxi that will take me to town. I feel like a drink. It would be weird to go to Eric’s. I’m supposed to be in mourning. I am, actually. I walk around until I find a bar. It’s mostly full of bikers. No newspaper people. No Mrs. du Toit. Nobody I know at all. It’s perfect. I order a beer.
I raise my glass to everything and nothing. Goodbye, Madge.
I know more
“I know more about Madge than I do about you,” says Mrs. du Toit. She was waiting for me after my Saturday morning run. Now we’re eating ice cream on her bed. Ice cream pairs well with Merlot, she says. The more we drink the better it tastes. We’ve spent the morning doing things that can’t be legal. I’ve never done anything like them. I’m worn out. The wine is making me tired. Even Sonia knows more about Madge than she does about me. I like it that way. Imagine standing in a big bucket. Every time you tell somebody something about yourself you’re pouring a spadeful of concrete into the bucket. Soon enough it’s up to your knees. It sets. You can’t move.
“And you know more about Madge than I know about you,” I say. She shrugs. I see the fear of the bucket cloud her eyes.
“I asked first,” she says.
“Ladies first,” I reply.
“Are you saying I’m a lady?” she laughs. She leans away from me and puts down her ice cream and her wineglass.
“Absolutely,” I say.
“We’ll see,” she says. She lunges. I spill wine on her duvet.
Crisis averted.
I could tell Mrs. du Toit that I don’t know much about me either. That I’ve chosen to forget as much as possible. If you think learning things is difficult, try forgetting them. Forgetting the Mandarin you’ve learnt to speak would be a lot harder than learning it in the first place. You can learn completely. You can never forget completely. The harder I’ve worked at it the easier the forgetting has become. Not very easy, just a little easier. Sometimes you think you’ve forgotten stuff. Then it catches you off-guard. While you’re sleeping. When you’re tired. Drunk. Madge with her dry white tongue sticking out between her teeth like that. A view of a lake. Darkness and the bitterness of pine needles. What goes with these. Then you hit a tipping point. Suddenly, the more you teach yourself to forget, the harder it becomes to remember. The forgetting invades the remembering. You start forgetting what you want to remember. Instead of just forgetting what you have to forget. Already I’ve forgotten the sound of Madge’s laugh. I can’t remember the taste of Mrs. du Toit for more than a few minutes after the deed.
She rolls off me. “Come,” she says. Bounces off the bed and yanks my arm, “Let’s go party.”
I hate nightclubs. I don’t dance very well. All those people. The thought of Mrs. du Toit in a red dress and red shoes in a nightclub. It doesn’t appeal. “Come on,” she says. She grabs the bottle of wine. She pulls me off the bed by my wrist. She puts on a CD. I don’t know what it is. It’s never going to be a classic. She slugs the rest of the wine from the bottle. She finds another bottle in a kitchen cupboard. She opens it. It has a screw-cap. She takes a long drink. She hands it to me. She starts dancing. It’s grotesque. It’s better than going out. I dance. I generally feel silly dancing. I feel even sillier with my cock flopping about. I drink more wine. I don’t care. We finish the wine in less than half an hour. Mrs. du Toit looks for more. There isn’t any. She sucks the last drops from the bottle. She puts it in the bin. She looks at me like she’s had a brilliant idea.
“Let’s have some pills,” she shrieks.
The pills are big and pink in my hand. “What are these anyway?” I ask. She passes me her glass of water.
“Widow’s little helpers,” she says.
That’s why there’s no husband then. He’s dead.
She laughs. We fall into bed. Nothing works. She laughs again and lies back. She splays her legs and throws out her arms. The back of a hand slaps me in the face. She laughs. Laugh laugh laugh, I think. Like a crazy person. The pills lift me off the bed. Th
e weight of my limbs stops me from rising to the ceiling. Mrs. du Toit has closed her eyes. Her lips are moving. She’s making sounds. I don’t know what they mean. I close my eyes too. I don’t know how long it is before I want to puke. I force myself off the bed. Stagger naked to my flat. Just make it to the toilet. Drag myself to the fridge for something to get the taste out. There’s orange juice. It’s off. I retch into the sink. I lean back against the counter. I look at the orange juice bottle. It’s not orange juice. It’s apricot. It’s not off at all. The room is hurtling off its axis. I look at my wall of photographs. I don’t have a single picture of Madge up there. I wouldn’t know where to put her anyway. The family tree has duplicated itself. One version is at a different focal length to the other. I close one eye. I almost fall over. I make it as far as the couch. My knees give way. I collapse. I wake up. I don’t know where I am. I stumble around. I throw up against a wall.
I don’t remember Sunday.
Mrs. du Toit knocks
Mrs. du Toit knocks at my door. She’s never knocked with great loud bangs before. I know it’s her. The cops would say something like, “Open the door, you’re under arrest.” It would give me a chance to fling myself out of the window. I haven’t seen her since Saturday. It’s Thursday evening. I’ve left work early. I don’t feel like going to Eric’s. Sonia will be there. She’s been bitching at me the whole week. Monday she bitched. Tuesday she bitched. On Wednesday she bitched so much that I snuck out early and got shitfaced at Eric’s all on my own. I don’t feel like the bitching carrying on under the guise of friendship. Behind the thin armour of beer.