by Eben Venter
His last chance. Duiker’s will either make or break him – this, while he’s counting the day’s meagre takings, the shutter already lowered, of course. What’s happened to Jack? Two short-arses who by the look of them could be related to Emile – though their presence might also upset him – have just disapprovingly (tongues clucking) examined his menu and prices, and stalked off to the chicken place further down the road with its rancid oil that you can smell miles away.
@ bus stop, Jack messages him. And minutes later on Facebook so that his 640 or however many friends can also comment on it (if they still give a damn): Is it wrong to still feel kicked in the jack because Mister Richardson forced me out of the hostel?
Finally, Mattheüs digs the Beretta out of the drum, shaking a few lentils from the folds of the pouch, slips it into his pocket and goes to the back, where Jack has now arrived and is waiting. Mattheüs with four containers of food for him to taste. Everything is told and retold and swapped; Jack says he smells of curry and oil.
Jack lies flat when they drive in at the gate. Mattheüs is convinced that Samantha knows of his presence in the house, Aunt Sannie without a doubt, and his father probably has a hazy awareness of Jack on debauched sheets over there in his son’s room.
Mattheüs admits the situation with him in the house unnerves him. He can’t help it. It’s not a question of not wanting Jack with him. It’s just. He can’t handle that as well. What does he mean by ‘as well’, Jack immediately wants to know from his supine position in the bakkie, his shaven head glistening in the floodlights of the driveway (next door, Aunt Sannie’s lights are also already on). Mattheüs shows him the fever blister on his lip, throbbing, he’s stressed to the limit, he says.
He immediately goes to sit with his father, who still seems contented, his expression clear and open. In fact, he didn’t phone once today. After a while he lets go of his father’s hand, only to pick it up again in his own when he realises that that’s what he needs right then. The old man has become like his child, he’ll miss him. He’ll miss the caring. Funny, hey?
The hand with liver spots and ever-vanishing capillaries, the skin loose and fragile over the bones of the hand – there is no longer anything about the body of this dying man that has the power to upset him. The cheeks that become even more sunken when he sucks at the Sustagen with the straw (how skull-like it seemed to him at first), the gaze of his unseeing eyes, even the shock of the few remaining pubic hairs, hard grey wires that have lost their way, he has seen it all in his father.
‘But have you made at least something, Mattie? Sometimes it takes a year to start showing a profit. Tell Pa if he should lend you a hand again. Mattie?’
He was far away in their old house in Observatory with Pa’s lush or rather glistening bush right at eye level, both of them, father and son, drying themselves in the steamy grey atmosphere of the bathroom. Those days, there was only one bathroom for them all in that old house.
‘Yes, Pa.’
‘Yes what? Must I help you with your overheads? You must speak up, son. Don’t wait until you’re in trouble. You know if a man doesn’t pay his bills he soon gets a bad reputation among suppliers. And very soon, too.’ It’s tired his father out, all the words. He won’t say much more than that tonight.
‘No, Pa. Thank you, Pa, I’m still all right, thanks. I’ve worked everything out well, Pa will see. It’s going to work.’ He’s never considered that his own father – now he comes to think about it – was a sexy brute in his prime. Is he allowed to think that way about his own father? (Jack would open the question for debate on Facebook.) Can you help what comes into your head sometimes? Can you say: okay, this thought or that image I’m not going to conjure up when you know very well the thought or image is already fully formed and right there, an adder in your bosom.
‘Some chicken soup for Pa, I see Samantha’s made some. Nice and thin. Pa won’t struggle with lumps.’ Then Mattheüs answers softly in reply to what he’s just been wondering about. ‘Maybe yes.’
With an effort, Pa turns his head to him. ‘What. My. Son?’
‘No, I’m thinking, maybe Pa can help me a bit after all. There are some bills that are only coming in now. The coffee machine I have to pay off every month, but I forgot about the deposit.’ (He’s sold only four coffees. Maybe he should hang out a banner or something.)
‘There you are,’ his father whispers, ‘I thought so. Go on, write out another hundred and fifty thousand and let me sign. Then I’ll have done with you for the time being, Mattie. Then you can continue on your own for now. A man has to, you know.’
Pa signs almost totally illegibly. Mattheüs can only hope the bank will accept it like that, and he puts his father’s hand back by his side and goes to the kitchen where Jack is up to no good. Not really, it’s actually very funny, the funniest thing he’s seen in three weeks.
Jack has left on only the overhead light above the stove; the rest of the kitchen is dark, the blinds up so that Aunt Sannie has a good view from her sunroom on the first floor across the way, which is exactly what she’s enjoying at the moment. There she stands in her mauve dressing gown with no shame; why ever should she be ashamed, spying on them? And Jack on all fours with only the wolf’s head showing over the counter, the wolf’s ears just above the windowsill, turned towards Aunt Sannie. The pointed ears – each tipped with a tuft, almost like a lynx – wiggle. He doesn’t know how Jack does this: they taunt and tease the vigilant old matriarch holding a mug of coffee or whatever it is in her hand, probably laced with something; they don’t trust her piety one bit, and her judgemental disposition is doubtlessly being kick-started right then, like a lawnmower being yanked to life by its cord, she who is firmly founded on a rock, a righteous one, exactly like dear Bennie with his wastrel of a son, and she shall neither falter nor fall, not now or ever in all eternity. Aunt Sannie lifts her mug in salute, takes a sip, over and out.
‘What the fuck, Jack,’ Mattheüs fetches a beer from the fridge.
The game is over, Aunt Sannie has seen her fill and switched off the light (in a while she’ll switch it on again), and they take their food to the bedroom to eat it in privacy.
Mattheüs hardly glances at the show that Jack has started watching, episode four of True Blood, the vampire story from the American south. His smouldering desire has returned (it’s never really gone), his need to go to his archive now or rather, and more blissfully, to go hunting for a new porn movie – the thrill often lies in getting there. The craving overpowers him like a repressed impatience that he can hardly contain any longer, something delicious on the other side of the immediate horizon of whatever he’s doing, he next to Jack on the bed with plates of food on their knees: it’s right there on the other side, he can even hear the change in his breathing. The difference is Jack. Jack has come as a bulwark and a barrier. He touches himself. He doesn’t want Jack to see him touching himself.
When Jack goes to shower, the opportunity arises for a quickie, he stops at a video that he would have fast-forwarded if he’d had more time, but any port in a storm. He shoots his load and cleans up just as Jack returns with a towel around his waist. Mattheüs flings himself onto the bed, stretches out and indulges himself in a male image he can still recall: the snail trail of hair all the way from the centre of the chest down to the navel, a supreme snail trail, an ideal, he (or Jack) will never look like that or have one like that.
Jack bends over and dries between his toes, under his arms, wipes his bald head with deft strokes. His breathing still tight, Mattheüs sits looking at how attractive Jack is in the half-light: so, what about him and this man, then? What about his dear, beautiful Jackie, and he turns cold at the thought that he could, without wasting a moment, flap open his computer again to find his way anew as he wants to, as he must.
Jack looks at him, his towel around his hips again. ‘Am I in this room for you, Matt? Do you at least k
now that I’m here?’
My dear son,
I’m nearing the end of the road, Mattie. The Lord is close to me. Do you know, even Samantha’s chicken soup, no, really, I can’t any longer. I can’t taste it any more. They say you need to be able to smell food as well. At Luiperdskop last weekend I picked up a few of the farm’s smells. And now in the toilet too when I go to make water, I smell it hitting my nostrils. It must be a tremendous dose they give me each time in oncology. I’d say that’s one of the last things I can still smell. Pa’s own toxic urine.
Ag, my son, how can you when you’re young and full of the lust for life and a bit devil-may-care ever predict what’s going to happen to you in old age? It’s good, too, that devil-may-care, that bit of naughtiness, the times you bend the rules a bit, Pa doesn’t condemn that. But, of course, you should stick to your principles. That’s what sustains you, day and night. Without that, ag, Pa doesn’t want to preach at you.
I did still want to ask you whether you found a bit of serenity on the farm in the veld and in nature. Pa can see that at the moment you’re on the go all the time, your day is full. Mattie, I wish you nothing but the best. I’m convinced that one day you’re going to build up a really big business for yourself. Branches all over the city.
Do you know, way back, I remember it out of the blue now, her name was Elisabet. She worked for me for only a short while. A lovely person, but psychologically unstable. One afternoon I drove her out to the Kenilworth Race Course, I sold I don’t know how many cars there to old Bertie Herselman. We were walking along the course while the jockeys were exercising the horses. I held her lightly around the hip as we walked. Suddenly the whole world around us shrank. It was just the horses, beautifully groomed, and the lovely green course and every now and then a horse making a dropping. That’s about all. And the beautiful blue sky above us.
Do you know, that woman found such peace there. Just a bit of nature and the earthy smells and the horses and all the gulls there. It was as if scales fell from her eyes. She took out her handkerchief and dried her eyes. She told me: I feel like a new person. Later on, she lost her way again. There was something in her head that I never understood. All that I knew was that life was too much for her. She couldn’t lead a normal life. And of course, I couldn’t keep her on. Shame, I wonder what happened to Elisabet. She had the prettiest, longest white neck. That was the prettiest thing about her.
No, my son, Pa doesn’t want to preach at you. On the other hand, I lie here and wonder, and before I know it I’m thinking about you. What would happen to the world if everybody was like you and your friend? Where would our children come from? You must know, Mattie, these are things I can’t easily put out of my mind. I’m only human after all, a man, please don’t hold it against your old father.
When you get to where I am, then you do want something of yourself to remain behind on this old earth. Well, Duiker’s Motors has long since ceased to exist and been given a new name. There are the earthly possessions I’m leaving behind, but that’s all dust. It doesn’t mean much.
In the end, all that remains are the people I leave behind, my blood relatives. Ag, my child, you must know that it’s not easy for Pa to talk about these things like this. I’ve wrestled with it so much and prayed to the Lord to help me resign myself to it. Sissy has the three little girls I love from the bottom of my heart, but unfortunately they don’t bear the Duiker name. Our bloodline stops with you, Mattie. There will be no more progeny. The bloodline runs dry. I suppose that’s the will of the Lord, I don’t want to kick against it. But let me tell you this today, Mattie, it’s a bitter pill for Pa to swallow.
That’s all I wanted to say. And I suppose it’s more than enough. I know what you’re doing for me, Mattie, I see it every day. Pa worries about you when you’re old one day and you don’t have children to care for you. What then? How will you get by?
Now I’m very tired. I’ll stop here for the time being.
Your pa.
With his left thumb he posts on his Wall: Jack @ kitchen. Mystery man also known as Wolfie will tonight fill all vacant spaces in Cape Dutch mansion with spaghetti bolognese. With bacon added. Parsley, celery and oregano. Yes! Too much of a good thing?
He stirs the mince in the pan to flash-fry it for a while without burning it. The blinds in the kitchen have been lowered and he can do his thing unseen.
Charnie (seconds later): So when can we come and party there?
Jack: You’re crazy in your head. I’m not even supposed to be here.
He fills a saucepan with water, adds a pinch of salt, and puts it on the hob to cook the spaghetti. The sauce must simmer to develop flavour. Jack sees to it that Matt never has to cook at home. In the mornings he makes the coffee, the toast, everything.
It remains strangely pleasant, but strange nevertheless, to be in the house. Without officially having signed the guest register. Uncle Bennie knows nothing or everything. He asks no questions, at any rate, not from Matt. Shame, when he does get to see him, in the afternoons or whenever he’d have visited anyway, the old man doesn’t look good. A matter of time. But people can hang on by a thread for months.
Here’s Charnie again. Squirt of lemon juice at the end. Mmm.
He puts the lid on the bolognese sauce and turns the flame down as low as possible. He helps himself to the white wine in the fridge, it’s a Hermanuspietersfontein. He’s talked in his classes about the use of Afrikaans in advertising. It works, even overseas. No need to go all English to sell. Eagle’s Nest chardonnay and crap like that. No point in it.
He never contributes to the wine or beer he drinks here. He simply doesn’t have the wherewithal. Not now. Once it’s only the two of them in this house, then he’ll try to do his bit. The prospect of living here alone with Matt is Jack’s secret. He means, whenever Matt refers to their house, he prefers to keep his mouth shut. Better like that.
While discussing a Breyten Breytenbach poem with grade eleven the other day – the boys only have to write one or two lines to show their understanding of the poem – he sat down himself and wrote out a list.
He calls it problem number one thousand and one, at present insoluble. No i: Matt’s got a helluva fever blister. No ii (Jack prefers Roman numbering, he always thinks it looks so good): Matt’s father is dying. No iii: Matt has started a new business.
According to him, these three things are the sum total of Matt’s stress. He’s convinced that stress, no matter how much of it Matt’s dealing with, doesn’t account for limp behaviour. It’s not that Matt isn’t hot in the sack. But to sleep with Matt nowadays is like sleeping with a very good friend. Almost like your brother. He’s gone lukewarm, the chemistry between them has fizzled out. It’s as if he can sometimes hear the noise in Matt’s head. Something’s happened to him. Or rather, something is happening to him. He knows what the something is and that makes him unhappy and sad and desperate and what? What should he do about it? Is there a cure for people like that? What he does know and experiences intensely, is that he, Jack, is out of it. He’s not part of it.
In class that day, Moenien, of all people, puts up his hand. He wants to know the meaning of leedvermakerig, line one, second stanza. It’s from the collection oorblyfsel/voice over, a conversation between Breyten Breytenbach and the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. Hence Moenien’s interest, the little fuckhead. Normally, he’s as switched off as a stone in class.
He explains the word to Moenien with reference to the parallel English text. Then he sits down and leans back in his chair. From where he’s sitting, he has a view of the boys’ heads at their school desks. From where they’re sitting, if they looked up they’d have a view of the back of Table Mountain, the part where Kirstenbosch is situated. It’s one of the best classrooms.
He takes out his iPhone and posts on his Wall: @ Zilverbosch. Mind adrift. Does anybody know anything about porn? How does i
t affect a relationship?
Jack gets sixteen comments on the effects of porn, and six ‘likes’. In the meantime he’s gone to sit under the wild fig in the garden across from the main building, the area reserved for the grade twelves. He’d say he’s a bit crabby today. Going to Duiker’s Takeaway now and waiting for Matt to finish is not an option. Matt’s room and Matt’s bed even less of an option. He thinks of the house where he’s so-called staying at the moment, and tries to delete the thought. He’s not happy.
Charnie: LOL you a porn junkie now?
Jack: Not me, stupid.
Jaco (ex-lover, lives in Green Point): Porn fucks with your sex. It’s all in your head, ask me.
Charnie (again): Don’t even know what it looks like. Is it guys swinging their schlongs?
Koos Lategan (ex-lover, lives in Blouberg): No-brainer. I mean, if you’re in love, porn’s second best.
Jaco: It’s dream stuff. You can never have those guys. And can’t do what they do. It’s images in your head. Cyber-fucks. Unreal, except that that’s not the way you see it.
Steve (an ex-pupil): You can learn a lot from porn. I did. Positions and stuff. Not healthy to watch too much. Your soul gets sort of messed up.
Jack: But if it’s your partner?
Charnie: Oh my goodness, you poor thing, you need TLC. Come over tonight. You can sleep on the couch.
Jamie (Even the redhead is chipping in. It’s getting too public. Should he have opened it here on Facebook? Ja, why not.): It’s ambivalent like most stuff around us. Can be good and bad. There are counsellors.
Steve (again): Ag, they just feel you up under the table.
Pete (a friend, lives in Mouille Point, rich, with two poodles and a helluva TV screen): Bring it on. Mad about it.