Lucky Packet
Page 9
‘I don’t know. I think maybe.’
‘Listen, actually it’s none of our business. What about you?’
‘What?’
‘Well, you’re going on the Standard Five Tour, aren’t you?’
I nodded.
‘That’s when you take a girl on tour.’
I gave a loud and rasping sigh.
‘Well? Are you taking someone?’
‘Maybe,’ I answered.
‘You’d better not wait too long. The good ones get snapped up, buddy.’
‘I know,’ I said, defiant. ‘I will. Maybe.’
‘Are your other friends taking girls? What about Markides?’ All my friends were surnames to him, not old enough to have grown into their own names yet.
‘I think he’s taking someone.’
‘So there’s someone you like?’
‘Maybe.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Ah, Jesus,’ I said. ‘Her name’s Georgina.’
‘How are you gonna ask her?’
‘How? I don’t know, I was just gonna ask her.’
‘You’re not gonna buy her something?’
‘Like what?’ I hadn’t thought about this at all.
‘You know – a little gift – a flower or some chocolate. Maybe we need a strategy.’
‘Look, I haven’t decided yet. Just leave it.’
We drove in silence for a while, then Will cleared his throat. ‘So, let’s say you take Georgina. And this is theoretical – I don’t want you doing this, understand?’ He kept his eyes on the road, even at the stop street.
‘Doing what?’
‘Well, in theory, you take this girl. Would you, hypothetically, know how to have sex with this girl? Do you know how babies are made?’
‘Jesus, man!’ I was not going to talk about this.
‘Well?’
‘Yes! Just – Jesus, man!’ Anyone with older brothers is exposed to porn at a younger age than their brothers were: this is a rule. When I was about nine, in an unusual but not surprising instance of cooperation between brothers, Elliot and Will and their friends sat down to watch a borrowed VHS. Someone’s girlfriend thought to ask whether they were going to let me watch the movie. Elliot paused the tape and a dark bush hovered over an enormous blurred cock.
‘Are you okay watching this, Ben?’ asked Will.
‘Sure,’ I said, because you never admit to being too young for anything when it’s your older brothers asking (another rule). While a second pale American girl with long blonde hair slipped out of her denim bell-bottoms in the back of a van on screen, the girlfriend in our living room got up and let herself out the front door, slamming it in case anyone had misunderstood her feelings on the matter. Her boyfriend stayed.
I was not going to remind Will of that early exposure. He pulled the GTS into the parking space outside Great North Diesel and Auto Electric. ‘Okay, then,’ he said. ‘Ma just asked me to talk to you, you know.’
‘I know how.’
‘What about, you know, protection?’
‘You mean condoms. I’m not a child, so you don’t have to tell me.’
‘Okay,’ he said.
‘Okay,’ I said. I was put off asking any advice of him, even though I needed it: understanding the mechanics of sex is one thing, but going from zero to asking a girl out was my current challenge and not one I felt up to.
Inside reception at Great North Diesel and Auto Electric, we called Ma down from the office and she came in her flecked cream wool suit, ready for the meeting with the bank. ‘Ben, are you coming, darling?’
‘It’s family business,’ Will said. He didn’t mind me coming along on family business. It was part of the empire-building, which Elliot had no wish to take part in, and in which Will assumed I’d want a place.
At Great North Diesel and Auto Electric they spoke behind his back – you could tell by the looks they gave each other when he passed. No doubt they called him names behind alternators and shelves packed with spares, but never to his face. And if he knew they said insulting things about him, he thrived on it.
He was after the chance, always, to demonstrate his mettle and his superior tactics. Disappointingly, just a few of his humiliating slashes in reply to anyone’s challenge were enough to keep confrontation to a minimum at Great North; respect for authority was upheld in our town, even through clenched teeth.
To stay sharp, he sought out confrontation elsewhere. Over the phone with travel agents, in shops with store assistants, even university staff – he made them all three-year-olds, out of their depth, eager to do his bidding if only to escape his attentions.
What a guy to have on your side! I never felt cheated, never felt bullied, never felt I didn’t have the right to be somewhere, as long as he was around. But inevitably I, too, would be made to feel out of my depth before too long. ‘Maybe the bank will take pity on us if they see a child,’ he said. ‘Try to look pathetic.’
We walked the three blocks to Volkskas Bank (Nedbank, though across the road from the business in the only real high-rise in town, wasn’t our bank). We were greeted by a secretary with hair that looked as if it had been detonated and then hairsprayed into a cloud of curls.
It was a time when bank managers still ranked with clergy. People feared their visits and confessed their lives to them. People willingly gave over their money and their precious futures to them. People believed in those men with side partings, those men who sat behind their names, which shone on brass wedges on heavy desks. ‘Manager will see you now,’ said the secretary, as if ‘Manager’ were his name, and she said it with hushed awe.
The bank manager had thinning dark hair that was brushed over the scalp and grey along the sides. He was in his fifties, with only a little belly, a hump that filled out a light blue-grey suit, and his office smelled of talcum powder. There were blocks of papers meticulously stacked on his desk; and there it was, his name on a brass wedge: Mr D. J. F. Beukes, Bank Manager, Bankbestuurder.
He was very polite, and so were Ma and Will, all three smiling those smiles that say God, this is awful. The bank manager ruffled my hair and sat us down at a little meeting table.
They were talking about something I didn’t really understand – the conditions for credit, or bank charges, I suppose – and it started out pleasantly enough. But then the bank manager said, ‘You know, times aren’t like they used to be. We can’t trust what the economy’s going to do. I’m sure you can understand, we’re all under pressure, and we have to operate under tighter constraints.’
‘I understand, Mr Beukes,’ said Ma.
‘We understand, Mr Beukes,’ said Will, ‘but we see a great future for our business, with the right support.’
‘Are we waiting for Mr Morgan?’ asked the manager.
‘He won’t be joining us,’ said Will.
‘Oh,’ said Mr Beukes, pulling at his tie with his fingers, one of which ballooned around a gold signet ring set with onyx. He began to talk again, orating into a space slightly above and between the heads of Ma and Will. ‘You are not unique, I must tell you. Every one of our clients – and the ones of other banks, I can assure you – will have to operate in a more tightly controlled manner. I’m a man who believes in numbers, you see. And if the numbers aren’t there, action must be taken. There’s no way around it. It’s the numbers, you see. And – I wish Mr Morgan were here – it’s all there in the numbers.’
‘I understand your difficulties,’ said Will, ‘and the difficulties of many of the businesses in town. Inflation is putting great stress on the economy of this town.’
‘Ah, yes. Well. But that’s not the whole story,’ he said, leaning forward and splaying his fingers on the table. ‘In your case, in the case of your business, the numbers—’
‘But I don’t need to remind you,’ said Will, interrupting, ‘that we’ve been customers of this bank for twenty years.’
‘No, you don’t.’ Mr Beukes froze in his forward position, looking at
Will.
‘It would be a shame if this … friendship … came to an end because of a little squeeze in the economy, a squeeze that is putting its hold on this whole town.’
Mr Beukes was saved from this uncivil suggestion by the entrance of the secretary with the tea. He grappled with her over the teapot, spilling some on a saucer.
‘Look what you’ve done!’ he said to her.
‘Sorry, Mr Beukes,’ she said and hurried out.
He caught hold of himself and softened his features like a jelly baby’s for Will. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘when Mr Aronbach arrived in this town, no one would lend him the money for the business. But we did.’
‘And we’re grateful for that,’ said Ma.
‘We are grateful for that,’ said Will. ‘All those years ago, none of the banks would lend to my father, you’re right. But you did, and see how the business has grown.’
‘Beautifully. It’s grown beautifully.’ And he said this rather sincerely, as if he were talking about his dahlias. ‘But the numbers—’
‘Thank you,’ said Will. ‘We’re a family business, as you know. And we do business with many of the long-standing businesses in town. We talk with some of the owners of these businesses, so we know the strain they’re under. And we’ve always said how wonderfully your bank has treated us. Ever since that day my father first stepped into this building.’
‘That’s very kind,’ said the manager.
‘And we talk, with our friends in business, about the difficulties of doing business,’ said Will. ‘And in talking to these friends – we talk a great deal with them, constantly – we all say, no one wants the chief difficulty, among all the difficulties we discuss, to be our bank. No thank you. It’s in no one’s interest, excuse the expression.’
The God, I can’t wait to be out of here smiles returned for an encore.
‘We’re partners,’ Will said. ‘This is what all our friends in business say. You want your bank to be your partner. “Is your bank your partner?” they ask us. “Why, yes,” we say. “Always has been. Always will.”’
The bank manager nodded. ‘Partners, yes.’
‘Mr Beukes, I really hope I can keep saying this to them. This is what I say to them: Mr Beukes and Volkskas Bank, if you want a real partner in business. Not those high-and-mighty paper pushers, sitting in their high-rise at Nedbank. And a lot of them tell me they’re with you already, anyway. I haven’t spoken to them recently – Du Toit from the Toyota dealership, Karel at Motor Spares, the Donalds with the shops in the locations, Boonzaier at KB Trucks. Are they all still with you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I haven’t spoken to them in a while, but I’m sure I will.’
Will made it sound so threatening, without raising his voice, but not backing down, not smiling any more at the jelly features. Hearing him talk, I believed we were the most powerful business in town – in fact, the business around which the town had sprung; without us, the place would surely crumble. And the bank manager believed him too.
All the man with the brass wedge and the side parting had to do was recall the rickety numbers of a motor spares business, whose debits and credits he knew, and he could keep us in check with his irrefutable figures. But Will made him forget it all and tremble like a three-year-old.
This was the talent of William Aronbach. We could throw him the keys and let him drive this family wherever he thought best. He was our champion. It was victorious moments like this, in front of the bank manager, that made us trust Will for so long.
* * *
‘This is stupid,’ Georgina would say in the morning at bomb squad, each word produced with that exquisite graininess in her voice. She said it most mornings, and I’d agree and laugh at whatever she said about the teachers. ‘What – are they scared? So they send us instead? I mean, does nobody think it’s weird that they send kids to look for bombs?’
‘The teachers can’t look everywhere,’ Barry would say. ‘They need us to be their eyes. You never know with terrorists.’
Georgina would roll her eyes whenever Barry said something like this, and I’d hope they’d roll in my direction so that we could sneer together; a synchronised sneer, united against … ah, who cares! United with Georgina!
After weeks of finding nothing except a school jersey, Gina began to lose interest. I saw her one morning by the tennis courts.
‘You coming?’ I asked.
‘I don’t feel like it.’
‘Me neither,’ I said. Well, it was true – I never felt like it, it’s just that now, as well as not feeling like it, I wasn’t feeling like it with Gina. We weren’t feeling like it together.
‘There’s never anything to look for,’ she said.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘We never find anything.’
‘I’ve got an idea. How about I do Mondays and Wednesdays and you do Tuesdays and Thursdays?’ she asked. ‘What do you think?’
I thought that was a terrible idea. Not only would I still be doing the thing I didn’t feel like doing, I would be doing it without her. ‘I like it,’ I said. ‘The less I have to do, the better. What about Friday, though?’
‘Barry comes every day anyway, so he can just do Fridays.’
I did two weeks of Tuesdays and Thursdays, just me and Barry. Barry didn’t say much about it and just picked up the slack from the missing kid, I guess. There wasn’t much to do, but he did it with zeal.
I did those two weeks and then I stopped altogether. I suspect Gina quit even sooner, but I’m pretty sure from the glares Barry gave me in the mornings that he continued his duties every day without wavering.
I’ll always remember the History lesson Mr Prinsloo gave us, in the weeks after my pact with Gina, not only because of the big scare, but because he was talking about Hitler. Mr Prinsloo was a retired teacher called in regularly as a substitute. His memory was shot through with holes and he had a very loose attachment to the syllabus; generally he’d talk and we might as well not be there except that his fits of temper kept us from letting our attention run away from him.
He was saying, that day, that Hitler had not been a natural orator at all, contrary to what we might’ve heard. But with passion and practice, he had risen above his shortcomings. It was the kind of thing he’d mention as an inspirational anecdote for us children.
It was then that the sirens sounded. Mr Prinsloo spent some time adjusting his hearing aid and Cathy Shepherd had to explain to him what was going on. We filed out in an orderly fashion but with a lightness, because drills always meant a good waste of time, and walked towards the rugby fields.
It was a Wednesday, Gina’s day to inspect and I was reminded of this when I saw her two rows away with her class. ‘Did you go this morning?’ she mouthed across to me.
I shook my head. ‘Your day,’ I mouthed back, pointing furtively to her.
She shrugged: not a careless shrug but one accompanied by some lip-chewing.
‘Barry?’ I mouthed, palms up.
She shrugged again and grimaced, and we both scanned the rows of kids. Barry was nowhere.
A loudhailer screeched. ‘All right, everybody,’ said Mr Groenewald. ‘There’s nothing to worry about. The school is safe. But a few minutes ago I received a call saying there was a bomb in the school. We’re sure now it was a prank. Not a very funny one, if you ask me. In fact, this is very, very serious. The police might have to get involved. Now, if any of you have any information about it, come talk to me or one of your teachers.’
Gina and I glanced at each other and quickly looked away again.
Groenewald continued. ‘Because the safety of the school is more important than anything. More important than what you might think is loyalty to your friends. I want you all to remember that. Go back to your classes, please.’ There was a general and almost unanimous ‘aah’ of disappointment.
Barry had been sick that day and, as a result, for a time he was the prime suspect. Gina went to Mr Groenewald and told him she was too scared to do t
he checks any more, and a few other parents voiced their disapproval. The teachers took over the inspections and probably skipped a few themselves.
Bomb squad was demobbed and I was further than ever from taking Georgina Melck on the Standard Five Tour.
7
TILDES AND WISHBONES
At about this time, Ma began suggesting I take Potato Latke on the Standard Five Tour. ‘Just think about it, okay?’ she said. ‘I’m not telling you to do it—’
‘Good,’ I said, cutting in.
‘I’m just saying it would be a nice thing to do.’
I was still fixed on Gina and cursed myself daily as I walked out through the school gates without asking her, another day lost. I even bought a chocolate bar, but there was never a good time to give it to her.
If Gina said yes to me, I would have an easy out from the Potato Latke scenario, which surely grew out of Carol’s meddling. I owed the family something for the lifts to cheder. I saw it as pity, clear as children see these things. Who wants to sit on a bus to the Natal coast for hours, days, next to a girl like that, whose brains were squeezed by migraines, pushing that whine out of her, who couldn’t come up with anything funny to say about the teachers and who would probably cry the minute we were outside town?
‘It’s just that her mother gives her such a hard time, I don’t know how she’s going to grow up,’ said Ma. ‘You can ask anyone in your class to go on the tour with you but what chance does that poor girl have?’
Ma was deluded about my popularity with kids, based on an ancient comment from Carol: I was the life and soul of some kid’s birthday party when we were seven, according to her. Things had slipped since then, and being different began to matter more – avoiding sport, being excused from Religious Instruction, having a weird brother: it all added up.
‘Not that she isn’t pretty, in her own way,’ said Ma.
‘She’ll be fine,’ I said.
‘Okay. I’ll leave it alone now.’ That she backed down from this so easily spurred me on to take her up on that other matter.
‘I don’t tell you who you can and can’t go out with,’ I said.