I’ve tried to mimic her in my later years. Minimum fuss. Maximum utility. A strong warmth and stroking orientation. After much experimentation I can confirm that it is a good life. A simple life too.
At this advanced age there is no larger meaning for me. I have done all I was ever going to do – and perhaps a bit more, thanks to the novelty of circumstance. I see the world as far bigger, more frightening and more strange than ever before. Today, the simple notion of moving beyond the outer perimeter of the farm is as exotic and strange as one of those French movies. Something fascinating to contemplate, to swirl around in the mind, but not ever to actually get involved in, or really understand.
I didn’t expect to be so benign in my last years. I pictured myself forcing death to wait, somewhere beyond the gate (ah, the fantasies of middle age). Now that I am here I understand that the search for sun and warmth has as much value – more even – than any other endeavour. This I have learned mostly from Camille, who is absolutely calm in her enjoyment of each day, of each rotating moment within it.
Of course, as the sun’s rays heat me I toy with life after death, life on other planets, the various options thrown up by Madala’s muddy presence. As my body temperature rises and my skin warms and my insides glow and I watch Camille, shining and pulsating in the sun, anything – any damn thing – seems not only completely possible but really quite likely. In a world where this kind of warmth can infiltrate beings such as cats and humans, what, ultimately, is not possible?
But then the sun moves and I find a blanket and she finds a heap of something to bury herself in and the potential of the morning fades and by the end of it I accept that this is probably all there is, potential aside. In the afternoons my mind runs at high speed through the memory banks, throwing itself back into life. My heart touches the strange and formidable shape that was my father and then courses roughly over the mystery that was my mother, memories blurring so fast that they become a tidal wave of sensations, cascading over and over each other.
I wipe the tears away with surprise. I am always surprised. I think of Angie, wife of another age. My angry, fighting wife. I am struck by how badly I treated her – how willing I was to lash. Oh, the fights we had. The savage, ego-ridden fights. Embarrassing. Humiliating – I now see – for both of us to have sunk that far. I would, I think as I stroke Camille’s white fur, really value the opportunity to go back and put my hand on her cheek and let it rest there in the love I genuinely did feel for her.
But I can’t.
CHAPTER 58
Who do you love?
Matron was layered. She moved through the world and her tasks in it – walking me, wiping Fats’s ass, dealing with the boils and pimples of life – via the external, functional layer, which was crisp and neutral and resolute. You couldn’t shake her circumstantially. In this incarnation she had the ability to disperse calm as if handing out pills. Her presence was, in itself, the pill.
But the longer I knew her – after months, then years, of shuffling by her side – I came to recognise the complexities. On internally sunny days, she was an innate optimist. But when the clouds came, she reverted to fear. Matron, in the dark hours of self, was extremely skittish. Not specifically afraid of this or that, but frightened in general. Of the world around, of the people and of the state of her own little heart.
On Thursdays, church days, holy days, the beat would drive, volume right up, bass cranked, from the early hours, incessant. I was always alone on Thursdays (maybe a visit from Andile or Beatrice, maybe not), and Matron would invariably return in her most delicate incarnation on the Friday. Over time I easily recognised the particular set of her jaw. The grind. Also the fragility of her person. Her lacklustre approach to food, her tendency to lose concentration, the conversation, the activity. Fridays she would flicker and twitch. The exterior motions were consistent, but the right kind of idea would hit her behind her eyes. Once hit, she would scuttle for cover.
Example:
She had her clipboard against her hip and was dressed in a conservative pair of brown office slacks. Her feet were, I still remember now, strangely stockinged inside brown open-toe office loafers. We were considering the height of the bed.
‘Check. Is low, Roy.’ She stepped back to consider it properly, then moved forward again and kicked the base. ‘You OK? Sho? Not easier if higher?’
‘Ja, maybe. But then if I stop trying, if I stop working at things like getting up, soon I won’t be able to. So maybe height is good. Like exercise?’
Matron stopped. Suddenly she looked terribly, terribly young. The skin around her eyes was stretched to a confused kind of smooth. A twitching, chemical smooth. I wanted to reach out and touch it. The cheek. ‘Is that so crazy?’ I asked.
‘Crazy? No!’ She snapped back into focus. ‘Nay. Clever mebbe…’ Now she drifted again, thinking ulterior thoughts. ‘Ay, askies, tata, I’m kinda everywhere. I been tinking so many things. Den when you talk like that – bout effort being good and such – ut just make me tink dem more.’
‘What kind of things, dear?’
‘Ag, nuttin. You shouldna even have to bother.’ She consulted her clipboard.
‘Try me, you’d be surprised.’
Matron stared through my eyes, still young, still flickering. Calculating. Then she pulled her glasses from her afro and held them between us. ‘I been strugglin wif dese. Wif the big guy.’
‘What about them?’
‘Fixed hours. Everyone. Every day. Compulsory. You ken mos. Four-hour minimum. Normally is not my jol. I don come close to decisions. I jus do. But last night dey argue while I walk past and he call me in, like some kinda experiment. Start hittin me with all dese personal questions bout wot I want and wot I believe and how many kids I’m plannin for next two years. I got real bad uncomfortable.
‘I know we not supposed to ask this shit but I start tinking bout wot if de were options. Udda kinds of options, ken. Wot if rules not the only ting. And then I kinda sensed he sensed, ’cause he stop with questions and jus stare at me for a long, long time, in front of all da others, so dey all starin me, an now, I dunno, I jus feel different. Nervous. You know, proppa nerves. Like I done summin wrong. Only I don tink I have. Unless tinking is wrong. And den I tink mebbe it is. So I guess… I guess I jus feelin nervous. And den I tink bout havin to wear these’ – she waggled the glasses and then returned them to her fro, checking their position for balance and solidity before carrying on – ‘and I resent as well. Like a bit angry.’ Matron shrugged, about to cry. She breathed deep and rumbled on. ‘An also da beat. Da beat an pills. Is hard to keep going all the time. Dis I know you know, nè?’ She chuckled, too nervous to look at me. ‘He so hectic bout the beat. Bout the dub thing. He won even let the kids mix de own trance. Even if ut fast and hard like Schulz. Only wot he say. An def no other beat. Neva. Neva neva neva anudda beat but we all know dere’s more. Much more. Everybody know but is scary to say. To risk, yes? Like jazz – we got lotta jazz in your house, tata. Udder tings too. Everybody know. But the beat he won’t stop. Neva. Any time anyone even tink of it, he blitz mad with English and the Zambians and the dub. Scared. Fridays most of all I feel scared. Shaky. Even when dey slow it. The down stuff, also the same. Just slower. Same beat. Shaky. He control it all. Always.’