“Now that I see them here like this, in their proper context, I begin to see what you’re driving at,” Malgas mused. “There’s something about them, l can’t quite put my finger on it. .”
Nieuwenhuizen looked into the box and smiled. He extracted one of the nails, blew a wisp of paper off it and slipped it into a leather loop. It fitted.
“Ah,” said Malgas.
“Fill me up,” Nieuwenhuizen commanded, spreading his feet and raising his arms as if Malgas was his tailor. He continued to smile benignly while Malgas loaded the bandoleer.
Malgas found it a satisfying task, punching out the dubbin marrow with the sharp point of each nail, wiping the goo off on his pants, and tugging the shank through until the head rested securely against the loop. Progressively, he was careful to research and develop an energyconserving rhythm. There were thirty-six loops. Nieuwenhuizen bounced up and down on his toes, discovering his new equilibrium. Malgas was surprised his skinny legs didn’t snap under the load.
“My hat.”
Malgas unhooked the hat from a thorn, beat the dust out of it against his thigh, punched its crown into shape and placed it on Nieuwenhuizen’s head. Nieuwenhuizen cocked it rakishly and asked, “How do I look?”
“Striking. What’s the word. . debonair.”
“I like that. I feel debonair.”
Nieuwenhuizen struck a few carefree poses and this gave Malgas a chance to examine his outfit more closely. He cut a fine figure. The only item that jarred was the bandoleer. In Malgas’s opinion it was excessive. The longer he looked at it, the less he liked it. It was pretentious. A plain pouch on a leather belt would have served just as well. Now that he’d conjured up a pouch, he couldn’t prevent a stream of plain images from gliding through his mind — the open face of a ballpeen hammer. . a sturdy clod crumbling between a strong finger and thumb. . a sap-stained scythe. . a gush of chlorinated water from a hose. . a sjambok. . ploughshares. . hessian pantaloons. . hieroglyphs of mud dropping from the treads of a work-manlike boot. These uncalled-for images — who had summoned them? — and their stately passage — who was beating the drum? — gave him the creeps.
“You’ve got your nails,” he said, rolling back the tide, “and rather too big than too small, I suppose. But, forgive me for pointing it out, you’ve got nothing to nail together. Forward planning is becoming more and more urgent. It’s high time you ordered your materials: bricks, cement—”
“Enough is enough in any man’s language!” Nieuwenhuizen said crossly. The fellow was already getting too big for his boots. “Timber and allied products —”
“Shut up.”
“Pardon?”
“Be still. I can’t take this obsession with brass tacks a minute longer.”
“Tacks?”
“You’ve got hardware on the brain, my friend, and it leaves you no room for speculation.”
This outburst offended Malgas deeply. He had made a substantial contribution to recent developments, and Nieuwenhuizen knew it. Why was he distorting the facts? Nevertheless Malgas stammered an apology. “I’m just trying to be practical.”
“You’re so practical,” said Nieuwenhuizen, who had not anticipated a defence, and repeated, “You’re so practical,” while he thought of what to say next. Then, without emphasis at all, “If you’re as practical as you say you are, answer me this: Have you ever given a moment’s thought to the shape and size of the new house?” By “ever” he meant since Malgas had been privy to his plans; and it must be said that this was exactly what Malgas understood him to mean. He went on regardless. “No you haven’t, there’s no need to state it. But let me tell you that I, for one, have to think about the new house all the time. Hardly a moment goes by that I don’t think about it. I can see it before me as clear as daylight this very instant, even as I’m speaking to you. Can you see it? Hey? Can you name one little nook of it? Is it on a rack up here in the warehouse?” And he emphasized this final question rather crudely by rapping on Malgas’s skull with his knuckles.
Such cruelty was out of character, and Malgas shrank from it in confusion and disappointment. “Not really. .”
“There you are. That’s what I’m talking about. No conception of the new house, but you’re worrying yourself sick over what it’s made of! You’d better sort out your priorities, man, or we won’t be able to carry on collaborating on this project.”
“I’m sorry Father,” Malgas mumbled. “Collaborating,” spoken in anger, had pierced him to the quick and the hurt was written all over his face. “I’m a simple soul, as you know. Now that you mention it, I’d love to see the new place. I’d give my eye-teeth to see it (as Mrs would say). But I’m not sure I can. You haven’t given me clues. Shall I try anyway? Let’s see. . Is it a double-storey by any chance?”
“There-there, say no more.” Just as suddenly as it had flared up, Nieuwenhuizen’s rage died down again. “I’m the one who should apologize. I’ve expected too much of you, I thought you’d pick things up on your own, without guidance, and now we’re both suffering because of my presumption. Perhaps it’s not too late to make amends.”
They sat on their stones with their knees almost touching. Both of them were suddenly apprehensive. Nieuwenhuizen opened and shut his mouth three and a half times, as if he wasn’t sure where to begin, but at last took Malgas’s hands in his own, kneaded them into one lump of clay, and said carefully, “Do you remember the old place I was telling you about on the night we met?”
Mere mention of that historic encounter, vividly evoked by the brambly clutches of Nieuwenhuizen’s fingers, was enough to make Malgas throb with longing for days gone by, but he mastered his emotions and said matter-of-factly, “It was beyond repair. The plumbing was shot. If my memory serves me correctly, the boards under the bath were a shade of. . green.”
“Whatever. Point is: The new place will be nothing like that. In fact, it will be the absolute antithesis. Ironic. Where that place was old, for instance, this will be new. Where that was falling to pieces, this will be holding together very nicely thank you. That was rambling and draughty, this will be compact but comfortable. Spacious, mind, not poky, and double-storey. .”
“I knew it!”
“. . to raise us up above the mire of the everyday, to give us perspective, to enable surveillance of creeping dangers. Make that triplestorey, don’t want to cramp our style. Bathrooms en suite. Built-in bar. All tried and tested stuff, bricks and mortar and polished panels, the stuff of your dreams, none of this rotten canvas and scrap metal, transitional, all this, temporary, merely. Forward! Nothing tin-pot! Everything cast-iron! Bulletproof — we have to think of these things I’m afraid — with storage space for two years’ rations. And on top of that wall-to-wall carpets in a serviceable colour, maybe khaki, and skylights and Slasto in the rumpus room. Materials galore, Malgas, right up your street. Malgas?”