I sucked in a deep breath, dropped my towel and my threaded pants, and jumped.
Ken Cotton, it turned out, was pretty much my size. I pulled everything he owned out of the cupboard and onto the bed and selected a hardy range.
8 pairs of boxers
hiking boots
slip-slops
7 x coloured Ts
2 x blue jeans
1 x black jeans
3 x khaki shorts
1 x international carry-on bag
4 x socks
2 x secret socks
1 x pair white Reeboks
I stuffed the lot into the carry-on bag, save for a pair of khaki shorts, a brownish-red T-shirt, long white socks and the hiking boots, which I wore as a joke I hoped would impress Babalwa. As I stood in front of the mirror, now more Ken Cotton than myself, I wondered what she might find funny about it, other than my shockingly grey hair, which looked, well, funny. My long, freshly clean, grey flyaway hair, the big grey beard, the hiking gear… I was a caricature of myself and Ken.
I loaded up a second bag on exit. A printed photo album from the saucy teenager’s room; the bra, G-string and suspenders from the same; her mobile and Kindle; a bunch of toothbrushes and toothpaste from the bathroom. I dumped the bags in the hallway and went back to clean out the kitchen.
Next I reversed the van from the rubble of the family room and rolled it around to the edge of the front garden, where the garage adjoined the kitchen. I put my seat belt on and smashed the van through the reinforced garage door. Reversed, and smashed again. Reversed, and smashed again. Reversed, and again. The van was shrill now, the engine and chassis moaning together. I parked in the driveway, walked back and checked out the Cotton garage, which contained, predictably, a BMW and a ladies’ 4x4, a RAV4. My heart leapt. The RAV’s metallic-blue shimmer was evocative. Neater than the cash-in-transit van, far less aggressive, it probably handled better on the road too. My heart still lifting, I stomped through the rubble in my new hiking boots to look for keys, which were hanging dutifully on a hook on the side of the kitchen cupboard, but which, of course, also had the biometric logo on the ring.
I went back to the saucy teenager’s room, pulled her queen mattress off its base, dragged it out to the driveway and pushed it into my beaten van.
‘Honey, I’m home!’ I shouted as I hopped out in front of my new apartment: 1B Donkin Terrace.
There was no reply.
In my charged and refreshed state, I had expected Babalwa to come out and greet me. To laugh – possibly – at my bizarre new attire. Instead, I dragged all my new stuff into the flat on my own. I pulled the hiking boots off when I was done and sat for a while on the white rail of my flat, which was really a stinking ghetto apartment with a teenage girl’s mattress and bedding dumped in the hallway.
I had, I now realised, neglected to bring any cleaning materials from the Cottons.
I wondered where Babalwa was.
I waited most of the morning for Babalwa’s return, dawdling around the front entrance of 1B, but there was no sign of her. Eventually I drove all the way back to the Cottons’ house, emptied out their cleaning cupboard, and then went back and scrubbed my new flat. Or at least the important parts of it. I would not, I suspected, be entertaining vast crowds.
The rooms were mostly empty. One had what looked like the remnants of a mattress on the floor, an overflowing ashtray, and a litter of broken and abandoned quart bottles. What passed for the lounge was really just a collection of beer crates, bits of wood and other odd seating devices on top of a morphing, interlocking spread of floor stains. I threw all the shit as far down Donkin Hill as I could, then went back to deal with the toilet, which I treated initially by hurling three buckets of Babalwa’s collected water over everything in the place, and then attacking it with Handy Andy and rags until it looked like somewhere I might be able to shit.
She returned a day later, by which point I had been back to the Cottons’ place too many times to count. Towels. The family book collection. A pillow. Another pillow. Another swimming-pool bath.
‘Nice,’ she said, using her big toe to mark areas still needing attention as she walked through my renovated digs. A mouldy corner of the bathroom. A light tickle against the grime on the bottom row of the stack of bean and tuna cans. ‘Not bad. Like a home, nè?’
‘So where you been?’ I trailed expectantly behind her.
‘Ah, I went home for a bit, you know, just… just to see. I dunno. Had some thinking to do. You know…’
‘We haven’t talked about it yet. I mean, we need to. I need to. I need to find out what you know. Jesus. I need to tell you what I know.’
‘Sho.’ She opened the door to the spare bedroom, then closed it again. ‘Limiting your range. Fair enough.’
‘So, fine. Can you tell me what happened? What happened to you? Or should I tell you what happened to me first? Maybe that’s better. Me, I was going through a bit of a life crisis that involved a serious need to sleep, which I did for a few days, and then I woke up and—’
‘Everyone was gone.’
‘Ja. All gone.’
‘Did you dream?’ In the kitchen now, Babalwa turned to face me, arms folded. ‘I dreamed.’
‘No – nothing. But, I mean, I wasn’t really in a condition to dream. Or maybe I dreamed and didn’t remember anything. Totally possible. One thousand per cent possible. In fact, very likely. What do you mean, dream?’
‘Let’s go to church.’ Babalwa marched out the front door.
I followed her over the crest of our hill to the Hill Presbyterian Church, an 1800s classic, replete with huge spire and broken front door.
‘Took me days to get this open,’ Babalwa said as she pushed the oak door gently forward. ‘Beat the lock with a hammer. Tiny thing. Took forever.’
We headed into the interior carefully, respectfully. Babalwa lead us to a front pew, where we sat in full view of a struggling Jesus.
‘I don’t know why. It makes me peaceful, this place,’ she said softly, still not looking at me. ‘Silly, I know. But—’
‘Christ, there’s no silliness left any more,’ I offered.
‘Sho. Sho.’ She folded her hands into her lap, priest-like, and looked me in the eye. ‘I was really tired that night. You know, beaten. It was a Thursday; I remember being rude to my mother and going to bed early. I was in that way, you know. Just kind of hating everything, but I couldn’t sleep either. I remember lying there and looking at the ceiling and questioning whether this was it. You know?’ Her eyes darted between me and her lap. I nodded encouragingly. ‘Anyway, do you know what lucid dreaming is? Ever had a lucid dream?’
‘Babalwa, I was a bad drunk. To be really honest about it, I can’t remember dreaming at all, ever. I passed out every night for over twenty years, so… no. Until it happened, nothing. After that, of course, I’ve been dreaming like a wild man. All over the place. But I can’t say any of them were lucid. The normal stuff, hard to keep a handle on when you wake up.’
‘I’ve heard the term before,’ Babalwa said, ‘so I’ve been wondering since I had the dream if that was what it was. A lucid dream. Anyway, I couldn’t sleep so I just let myself drift, wallowing in being awake, or half awake, or drifting. Whatever.’ She looked up at Jesus, then back down at her lap. ‘So at some stage I’m definitely not awake any more, I can’t be, but I don’t feel like I’m dreaming either. I’m alert. Even now, when I think back I can remember the small details, which is strange, because who can ever remember the details of a dream?