I ask Matron every now and again what she thinks of it, whether her neck doesn’t hurt with all that bobbing, if she wouldn’t value peace, silence and the sound of birds.
‘Tuesdays, eleven o’clock,’ she chirped the first time. ‘Thursday eves, of course, and den also Sunday afternoon.’
‘But isn’t that really regimented?’ I asked, incredulous at her willingness to accept the scheduled call of birds. ‘I mean, isn’t the beauty of the bird that random sound? The chirp out of nowhere?’
‘Hai, tata.’ She chuckled and patted my arm. ‘Always da one, nè? Birds.’ She shook her head at the indulgence. ‘Birds.’
I chuckled too.
There are birds outside. A lot of birds.
But inside is new and shiny and filled with words and phrases.
The beat goes on.
It’s the beat.
We live. We beat.
Remember the nine.
Etc., etc. Of course I don’t really understand what each of them views through their own interface. I refuse to wear the glasses or even think about engaging. But I assume, and I think I’m safe in the assumption. The general messages are repeated, and enforced. Drilled in. Drilled out. I ask, of course. I always ask. They laugh and cluck and pat me on the head. ‘Ah tata, always with the questions. Always.’
The beat is one thing. I understand it. I brought it – albeit accidentally – to this time and place. But the neon is different. Shocking. Ubiquitous. When I am forced to the centre, to the expo or the archive, I take the long way. I step around the colours and the faces – worst of all my own, flashed again and again like a prayer.
It revolts me. The story. The sight of myself. The way we have been cast in this concrete. But, even with eyes down, even taking the long way round, I catch glimpses, flashes.
‘Never Forget’ the text reads above a montage clip of my younger arriving self, hand in nervous hand with Babalwa. We hug Beatrice. Fats beams around us, dancing a little on excited toes. Beneath, a single word: ‘Origins’.
I ask Matron. I mean, I really ask her. I’m not just looking for somewhere to place this escaping old man’s air. I really do want to know.
‘Culture, tata,’ she will say, maybe not smiling this time, maybe serious, maybe really trying. ‘It matters to us, where we comin from, why we here. Wot you did. The journey. Your story. Is important.
‘If we don remember, who den? We love to see you – all a you. An wot you did when it was impossible to do.’
She’s serious. Like death. She believes. My eyes get wet. I push at them. She thinks they are all our tears. She thinks they belong to us.
I don’t have the heart to explain.
There’s talk and movement around a Mlungu’s-style set-up. They are building a set of chairs right now that approximate our old sex-money machine. Doubtless they’ll harness the story of Roy, my story, as they go.
I don’t have the heart to argue. I think of Eileen suddenly, out of nowhere. Eileen with her pad and her notes and her hormone spikes. We could do with her now.
The archive is old and musty. It stinks. There are fish moths. Insects. I refused to paint it, and later I refused to let most of them near it. Once you’re inside you’re safe – no messaging, no interface, no colour, no movement. It’s a library. As long as I’m alive I will keep it that way.
They say it matters. That it’s an essential part of the story – the Eeeyus, specifically, are supposedly within us all. The expo has a whole section on the Eeeyu experience. A narrative, so called. They visit and pray and defer to the idea of it. But the archive? The books? The servers? Untouched.
Unloved.
Unrequited.
I suspect they will tear it down, or wipe it away, or paint it over. But while I live, they would never dare. Sthembiso would never let them. It belongs to me. It is my peace. The little fuckers respect that, despite their stompings. Oh, it is also, crucially, soundproof. There are no beats in the archive. Not even an echo. As I say, peace.
I have no such influence over anything else, though. The corridors and paths – blizzards of neon – I hardly recognise. The expo remains roughly as it was at the core, although they have built and expanded and extrapolated hopelessly. It’s larger. Bombastic. A monument.
When I need to go, when I just have to, I have my own route. I walk around, find the statues at the front and take a quaint little stone alleyway, left in place as a pacifier, around the side, and on this path I know exactly where I am and where I’m going. At the bottom of the alley is the archive. A small wooden door. I push it and I’m in.
Other routes end in frustration. They find me somewhere unknown, wandering, lost, cursing the colours, spitting fire at walls and passages that I refuse, on principle, to read.
They call Matron.
Matron tuts in my ear and leads me back.
What are they doing?
Where do all those paths lead?
What are they saying? Why are they saying it?
I can’t tell you.
I wish I knew.
All I can say is what I see, and I see that they are busy. Very, very busy. Friday to Wednesday they rush, heads bobbing, beat driving. They walk alone, they walk in groups, they stop and chat. Some have clipboards, most have notes in one form or another. They all have devices. They all click. Moving or standing, meeting or running, they have a plan.
CHAPTER 56
I am her child
Technically she is the matron. It’s what they all call her. But in my heart, too, she is the matron. Matron defines, now, at the end, my parameters. Her name? I’m not sure. Some days it’s there, others not. Today I must reach. Let’s say Mavis. For today, Mavis. For what that’s worth. But really, she’s the matron. You don’t need to know much more than that.
Matron is somewhere between thirteen and thirty years old. She dresses in the uniform: skintight jeans, tank tops which accentuate her breasts and expose the flesh of her upper body almost completely, and glasses, of course, nestled within a robust afro, unused. Well, unused around me, out of respect for elders, etc., etc. She drops them down as she walks away from my tired old corner house.
Her skin is a cup of strong, milky coffee, so I know that I exist in her somewhere. She is, in an abstract sense, my child.
Mostly, however, I am her child. She walks me. Some days like a dog, some days like a five-year-old, some days like a father who never was. We go out the front and then we debate every turn, as if each choice matters. She offers them gracefully, not at all like some of the others, who ask with a bark and a push. She will gently tata me around a few blocks. Unless it’s a bad day, in which case she will force me distractedly by the elbow, at speed.
Then we’ll come back for tea, and discuss and argue. Often about Bovril. Matron is a huge believer in the health benefits of liquidised cow. Me, I tell her I know exactly how those cows died and which parts are used for what.
‘Ag no, tata!’ She always laughs, then follows up with a gentle shake of her head and a murmured reference to my otherness. Then she’ll spread two options – one jam, one Bovril – and I’ll eat them both in our silence. When she leaves she will give me a hug in thanks, a proper hug, like she means it. I will grow hard against her, in an elderly way, and she’ll tut again, in the nicest possible way.
Maybe later.
Maybe another day.
Matron, I tell.
She listens, without truly considering. I explain about Madala and the algos and what happened and she asks questions like she means them. I go into the details and she nods, serious, unless something catches her eye, or her ear, in which case she’ll pat my arm in a steady rhythm of deafness.