The Boy Who Could Keep a Swan in His Head

by John Hunt

  She then opened the dictionary again, pretending to check once more. Her eyes looked up from the page and scanned the classroom. It was a moment to relish: a group of young, highly focused minds waiting to be triggered. Aside from the Leb, who fiddled noisily as he tried to slide the wooden roof of his pencil box closed, there was dead silence. She pulled her belt down and waited with one hand on the buckle. Her lips moved, first teasing, then finally loud and clear.

  “The word is ‘pro-ver-bi-al’. I repeat, the word is ‘proverbial’.”

  The class all turned to Vernon MacArthur. His hand launched skyward, lost altitude and hovered around his ear. He knotted his eyebrows as he sought the answer and repeated the word soundlessly. It was all an act. He didn’t know the answer and everyone knew it. The more time Mrs Smit gave him, the more obvious it became. Vernon soldiered on, determined to portray it as a lack of memory and not of knowledge. His hand stayed half up as his head began to droop. Mrs Smit now allowed another kind of tension to develop. She would not put him out of his misery until his humiliation was complete. His pride needed to be slow-roasted. It was the last day of school; it would end on her terms. She was so caught up in Vernon’s degradation that her eyes failed to see another hand slowly rise and crest the back of the Leb’s head.

  Phen had never spontaneously answered a question at school. Not once. Possibly the courage came from Hettie’s act of defiance. Perhaps it was because it was the last day of term and his final chance to remind his classmates that he existed. No one spoke to him at school any more. He wasn’t sure if the class had planned this or if it had happened naturally. Jimmy would let him walk home with him but only after they were a few blocks from the school. Maybe he thought it was time to be at the centre of his spiral. Or at least nudge it upwards. His world continued to spin with no brakes. Could this be a sign his life was about to change? Coincidence?

  He couldn’t believe his luck when Mrs Smit had said the word. Phen didn’t know the meaning of proverbial but it didn’t matter. As fortune would have it, he had heard the word being used the night before in his kitchen. So he had it attached to a sentence as well. The sink had blocked and the caretaker had called the plumber. They had both battled with the corroded flange that joined the large S-pipe before it disappeared into the wall. They’d wrestled with wrenches and spanners and all types of tools before they’d managed to get it to budge.

  The Leb flattened himself across his desk to ensure Mrs Smit had a clear line of sight. She saw yet she didn’t believe. Her eyes registered both annoyance and surprise. Attention was now being diverted from a broken Vernon to Phen, who stubbornly kept his hand in the air. The entire class shifted in their seats to address this new phenomenon. Centre row, two from the front housed the boy who was always at a loss for words. He didn’t talk; he certainly didn’t participate. Now he was suddenly the hushed centre of attraction. Mrs Smit pulled her finger out of the dictionary, put it down on the table, and crossed her arms. She flicked a single eyebrow up, combining permission and ridicule in one movement.

  Phen stood up, faced her squarely and tried to calmly slice the sentence into individual sounds, then words and finally a full sentence.

  “I-i-i-it’s tighter than a nun’s proverbial.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Phen repeated the sentence. “I-i-i-it’s tighter than a nun’s proverbial.”

  After a difficult start, he thought he’d done very well. The sentence was a little staccato. It certainly wasn’t a blurt. He’d had to cut proverbial into four. All in all, though, he was happy with his articulation. Phen initially thought Mrs Smit’s stunned expression was due to the relative smoothness of his delivery. It was only when he began to feel a strange, almost bewildered reaction from the class that a sense of unease developed. Since none of the students knew what proverbial meant in the first place, it took some time for a full understanding of the sentence to filter through. Although the classroom was picking up ricocheting signals from everywhere, they were battling to interpret them. The sustained look of shock on their teacher’s face was the biggest clue. Her mouth stayed open as everyone began to whisper and gesticulate towards its real meaning.

  Philip Denton got it first.

  Being a year older and having a brother in high school contributed greatly to a brain that might determine the various tightnesses of a nun. Vernon MacArthur didn’t believe him. “It wasn’t the proverbial I remembered.” The Leb wasn’t far behind Philip. He spun around in his desk and stared at Phen with a mixture of pure delight and astonishment. Carlos crossed himself and Jimmy the Greek was left floundering. He would later have Philip Denton break it down for him in anatomical terms. This would lead him to ask, “Why she give him such filthy word then?”

  The girls, when they finally understood, took it personally and fell into a sanctimonious silence. They were appalled beyond words. Sisters in shock. As the boys warmed to the topic, the girls froze. Struck dumb by the horror of the sentence, Hettie Hattingh began to cry. It had been a horrible day anyway and now it was even worse. Phen could sense all this but couldn’t understand any of it. He stayed standing as the realisation slowly dawned that he was not going to get double points. Mrs Smit emerged from her trauma, staggered to her desk and began to write. Phen took this as his cue to sit down.

  Being sent to the headmaster’s office with a note and having to wait in the secretary’s office for an hour meant he missed the rest of school. By the time he’d been ushered into the only room with wall-to-wall carpets, everyone else had gone home. Mr Kock was signing report cards and didn’t look up. Phen stared at the top of his head for so long he thought he was becoming disrespectful and turned sideways. There he found another Mr Kock in shorts and a floppy hat. He was smiling as he held a fish with teeth that pointed in sharp, different directions like the petals of Hettie Hattingh’s strelitzias. The speedboat he was standing in was called Lekker-Dekker and, although it was a black-and-white photograph, Phen was sure it was painted in some bright colour.

  “Tiger fish. Zambezi.”

  Phen spun back into position.

  “Africa’s piranha. Not really.”

  Although the headmaster wanted to be in holiday mode, a sea of paperwork blocked his exit. He carried the air of a man in a good mood against all odds. Phen handed over his note and he added it to the pile with a playful grimace. When the boy didn’t leave, he corrected himself and grabbed the envelope back.

  “I thought it was for just now, not now.”

  Whatever had been written, Mr Kock had to read a few times. At one stage he even turned the letter sideways hoping some better understanding would laterally reveal itself. He then opened the pocket-sized dictionary he kept next to his glass ashtray. The type was small so he had to put his glasses on as he licked the tip of his finger and turned the pages. Having found what he was looking for, he seemed to lose himself in the text. Phen drifted off to Lekker-Dekker again and thought of The Old Man and the Sea. He wondered if his headmaster knew who DiMaggio was and if he’d ever fished in the Gulf Stream. Had he ever used a harpoon and caught a fish so big he had to tie it to the side of a boat?

  “Youngster!”

  Phen left the glowing lights of Havana and returned to Roseneath School. He watched the mouth as teeth bit into a lower lip and a finger stroked the hairs of a brown moustache into place. It was thicker and more toothbrush-like under the nose before flattening out towards the sides.

  “Inter alia the correspondence, were you fully aware of the usage of said word in said context?”

  Phen didn’t understand the question although he immediately knew the answer. Just to be sure, Mr Kock hinted by shaking his head. He tried to answer instantly. Sounds, not words, jerked out. The harder he tried the more he stammered. He wanted to pause, to get his breath, but was scared the silence would be seen as insolence. All he had to say was “no”. Two letters, one sound. His mouth could machine-gun the N, yet proved useless in reaching the O.

 
“Whoa safari!” The headmaster rubbed his moustache again. This time using his thumb and forefinger to smooth it left and right. “Inhale. Let the air in.”

  Phen refilled his lungs and fell silent. To be beaten by a word of two letters left his humiliation with nowhere to hide. It didn’t even have an S in it. It was taking all his control not to cry. By the time he looked up, Mr Kock had put his glasses back on even though he wasn’t reading. The thick, black rims, similar to his father’s, made him look important, like a judge waiting to pass sentence. It took Phen a few moments to realise his eyes were closed. Was he praying? Or already dreaming of his holiday? When he opened them, a kindness settled over his face. He took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes and allowed the faintest of smiles. Then he playfully flicked at the glass ashtray. It tinged like a bell signifying time was up.

  “Go and enjoy your holiday … and watch out for those English words. Some have got more teeth on them than a tiger fish.”

  When Phen told Heb about his last day of school it made him suddenly stand up and do stretch exercises with his back to him. When he finally sat down he said if the intent was pure, no man could be held to account for a well-meaning action that had gone awry. He then explained what awry meant. They were seeing each other every day now. Sometimes even mornings and afternoons if Phen could slip out the flat or combine a chore to the shops with a walk for the dog.

  He had to escape. The growing presence of the patient was felt everywhere. Even his smells slipped from under the closed door and permeated the other rooms. Mairead sprayed toilet deodoriser everywhere. Phen’s egg-and-lettuce sandwiches tasted of lavender. His father demanded attention then piteously rejected it. He scorned help on the way to the bathroom and insisted on it on his way back. He didn’t need oxygen then scolded everyone for not knowing that he did. The tape recorder spun forward then back as whole chapters were missed or told again and again. Reels snapped and were sticky-taped together to produce a reading that jumped, fell silent or jittered like Phen on a bad day.

  It wasn’t difficult keeping Heb a secret. The bigger Hillbrow grew, the more invisible its inhabitants became. Everyone was on the move. He and Heb seemed to be the only ones standing still. Hillbrow was the junction on the way to somewhere else. Only the sick, disillusioned and directionless stayed. Like a refugee camp, it was filling up every day with more and more people who had excitedly arrived knowing this wasn’t their final destination. Cranes and concrete mixers rested only on the Sabbath as they tried to accommodate the influx. As each new apartment building was finished, it was immediately crammed with a smorgasbord of humanity. They spoke in different tongues, and those from the Mediterranean were suspiciously dark for a white South Africa. Mairead often referenced the Tower of Babel.

  In this frenzied to-ing and fro-ing, who would notice two figures sitting on a park bench? It might seem strange to some that a young boy would be spending time with a hobo. With a lead in his hand, though, those strolling past presumed it was a moment of proximity while the skinny boy walked his dog. The only other person who might have asked questions was Jimmy the Greek. He sometimes came to the park to kick his soccer ball and frighten the pigeons. But he had gone to his uncle’s caravan somewhere in the Transkei. He was “swimming the sea with body board, trust me, not horse”. Everyone blurred past while Phen and Heb sat and stared at the horizon.

  It was almost a week into the holidays when Phen presented Heb with his mother’s old sunglasses. It didn’t feel like stealing; she hadn’t worn them for years. He’d found them when looking for a pack of cards. They’d been hidden under a theatre programme for Fiddler on the Roof. On the cover, a man in a cloth cap leaned against a chimney holding a violin while a black cat stared at him.

  “I noticed you’re always squinting into the sun.”

  “Very nice.”

  “You don’t have to use your hands to cover your eyes any more.”

  Heb put them on enthusiastically and marvelled at the quality of the lenses. He said he’d always loved pink. He particularly liked the diamond bits that swept up the corner of the frame. They reminded him of the twinkling of stars at night.

  “Cat-eye sunglasses, I believe they’re called. Thank you,” he said. He pushed them further up the steep bridge of his nose.

  “I thought you could also wear them when you practised t’ai chi or yoga.”

  “Add to the serenity of my being. Ooooom. Mani padme. Hummmmmmm,” he chanted.

  Although the sunglasses were a gift and not a bribe, Phen hoped they would add to his serenity too. He was still waiting for his miracle. He’d mentioned to Heb, in a very direct manner, that his father was not getting any better. He’d shared his dislike for the doctors, especially fatty Baldwin, yet this had led to only a muted response. He enjoyed the time they spent together in the park. They could sit for hours discussing the different shapes of the clouds and how the mine dumps always moved yet never went anywhere. But back at Duchess Court he wanted action. Things needed to change, and fast.

  “I have to go now. My father’s so sick we need to take turns at his bedside to give my mom a break.”

  Heb nodded, keeping his sunglasses on.

  “The doctors come nearly every day. I overheard them saying there wasn’t much they could do.”

  Heb continued to nod. The sun ricocheted off the corners of his frames. Tiny starbursts exploded in front of his temples.

  Back in his father’s bedroom he continued the truce with the tape recorder. It could talk provided he couldn’t hear it. While his father slept, he turned the volume down to a barely audible mumble. Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle muttered and grumbled to itself as he watched the tiny chest rise, hold, then deflate. The oxygen played its usual song, background music that was now never turned off.

  Phen stared at all the books lined up above his father’s head. Spines pushed out; closed and erect, they looked like soldiers on parade. Eager and ready, they waited for a call to action. Phen sat uncomfortably on the arm of the leather chair while the two reels turned. Occasionally they’d catch the edge of his shorts, stutter momentarily, then continue. His father was alternately too hot or too cold. Right now, the thick duvet made the bottom of his body disappear entirely. Phen looked for his knees and feet but even they were made flat and invisible.

  He bent down onto his knees to pick up the glasses case that had fallen on the floor and decided to stay there. Phen created his own Trinity by placing Jesus between Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif. The bowed head reiterated that he would be happy to stutter all his life or be struck dumb, if only his father would recover. He bit his lip until he felt blood in his mouth and dug his nail deeply into the fleshy part of his palm. In a mixture of frustration, anger and pleading, he made Heb join the Holy Three. He begged for help, couldn’t hear the answer and couldn’t stop them all from putting on cat-eye sunglasses and doing t’ai chi.

  “Bugle,” his father said.

  “What?” Phen stood up.

  “If you want to call the US Cavalry, try blowing a bugle.”

  He showed him the glass case in a weak attempt at an alibi. His father squeezed his hand in thanks. There was so little power in it, Phen wasn’t sure if he should squeeze back.

  “Perhaps you could ask your mother to bring me a cup of tea, a ginger snap to dip in it and a soupçon of morphine to wash it all down?”

  17

  Parody

  /par’e-di/ noun

  Phen continued not to know what to do with his angel. He’d had a glimpse of another world, been teased by its possibilities, yet found no way to take advantage of it. What use was this awareness of a parallel universe if you couldn’t bring it in to help your own? It wasn’t knowledge, if that was the right word, that he could just park outside and stare at like Mr Trentbridge did with his Ford Cortina. Not that his immediate environment was conducive to vacant gazing. Within the walls of number four he could sense the exhausted gears that turned their lives were slipping more and more. Everyone
was yanking at their levers harder and harder, with less and less effect.

  Mairead had launched into a tirade about a store in the new Highpoint complex that claimed it would sell roasted chickens twenty-four hours a day. Fontana would be open every day and night of the week. The huge construction had barely been completed and the thought of poultry being consumed at three in the morning drove her into “quite a lather”, as Ed put it. Mairead was also incensed that they would be selling hot rolls and French loaves at the same time. She found the French unclean, full of garlic and their torpedo bread hopeless for making intelligent sandwiches. The point was, she questioned anyone who crossed her path, was it a bakery or a butchery? And why on God’s green earth would you choose to mix the two?

  Uncle Edward, for his part, wandered in the background, telling everyone he didn’t want to be a nuisance. Mairead smiled demurely and perpetually told him he wasn’t. Phen wasn’t so sure. His mother seemed to want him out of the way on the leatherette lounge chair where his grandmother could feed him tea and shortbread. Every time Lil went from the bedroom to the kitchen to fetch boiling water or throw away the used ampoules, he’d stand, embarrassed that his only contribution was his good manners. Once she was gone he’d hover like some ever-hopeful bystander until Mairead patted the cushions and suggested he sit down again.

  The cause of all this skittish behaviour was the sudden deterioration of the patient’s health. Ed had told Phen not to worry because his father was not himself. Yet he could cast no light on who he had become. His father’s mind seemed to be trapped in a shifting fog. Usually the morphine made him sleepy and unintelligible yet when the clouds cleared he seemed to see further than anyone else. He recalled the minutiae of the past and spoke of the future without being burdened by it.

  He’d watched his father open his eyes, move further up his wall of pillows and scan the room as if for the first time. He needed a few minutes to come to terms with what the box that was his bedroom contained. Could a man’s life be so compacted? How could vast dreams end up with boundary lines measured by the reach to an oxygen mask or a stretch to a bedpan? He’d try to wave away the twilight, not sure if it was in his mind or in the room, then slowly turn and put the bedside lamp on. The triangle of light caught Phen’s knee as he sat sharing the chair with the tape recorder. His father traced it back over his body and up to his face.