32
KISS THE BRUISES
I am in the garden, shirtless, reading, when the doorbell rings. I watch to see if Denise will answer it but she doesn’t. She has a habit of disappearing without telling me where she’s going or when she’ll be back. I put down the novel and approach the door with caution. It is a teenager in a suit. I swing open the door in what I hope is a menacing manner. It has the desired effect and the youngster takes a step back, as if he has just realised he has stumbled upon the (half-naked) village madman.
“You a bible basher?” I ask. “Jesus Freak?” He shakes his head.
“Jehovah’s Witness?” Headshake.
“Hare Krishna?”
“No, sir,” he says. He doesn’t look like a Hare Krishna.
“What are you selling?” I ask, eyeing his fake leather hand-me-down briefcase.
He opens his mouth but says nothing.
“Vacuum cleaners? Stain pens? Avocados? Lawn dressing?”
“Uh,” he says.
“Well, I don’t have any money. So you may as well move on. Mrs Fritz next door seems like a nice old lady.”
“I know,” he says.
This catches me off guard.
“You know Mrs Fritz?” I ask.
“No,” he says, looking at the ground, “I know you don’t have… any money.”
“What?” I bark.
“I’m from United Bank,” he says, digging for a business card in his shirt pocket.
“You’re from my bank?” I say, not without incredulity.
“Yes, sir, Mister Harris. I have paperwork for you to sign.”
“Who sent you?”
“The bank, sir.”
“Not Edgar?”
“Er… no.”
I consider him for a full minute before buzzing open the gate. I find a wrinkled shirt slung over my gentleman’s valet, sniff it, and throw it on.
In the kitchen the kid opens his briefcase and sheaths the table in legalese. He has a giant pen uncapped and offers it to me. I cross my arms.
“Shouldn’t you be in school?” I ask.
He smiles a tired smile.
“Are you going to tell me what this is about?”
“Oh,” he says, confused, fingering his forehead. “I assumed you had been advised.”
I give him a hard look.
“But,” he says, searching for words, “but you got three letters.”
“Ja,” I say, “I get a lot of letters, what’s your point?”
“The letters from the bank sir,” he says. “Three letters.”
“Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?” I demand.
“F-foreclosure,” he whispers.
“What?” I wind my watch.
“You have failed to make your last six payments. And we’ve had no communication from you.”
I shoot up and the chair falls behind me.
“We tried to contact you on various occasions. We offered you payment plans and debt counselling. Quite frankly we did everything we could.”
“The bank is repossessing my house and they send a punk kid to break the news? How old are you, anyway?”
He clears his throat.
“Thirty.”
I kick the kid to the curb. The house seems different now that it’s not mine. I touch the cool walls; admire the pressed ceilings. Wonder what the fuck I’m going to do.
They say that you should not measure your worth by the things you own but what else do I have left? What will happen to my ShowerLux™? How will Francina find me if she comes back? How will I stay safe without these walls around me? The blue-skinned man watches me pace. I curse the bank with every bad word I know in every language I know. Bloodsuckers! Bloodsucking mothertruckers! When the money was rolling in, the managers were tripping over themselves to give me crappy free desk pads and take me out to lunch, now I have nothing and they send a ten-year-old to break the bad news in his breastmilkbreak.
Denise gets home and I tumble into her. I kiss the bruises on her neck.
I call Sifiso to ask for another advance on the royalties for the book I have not yet written.
“Look, Harris,” he sighs, “I’ve been meaning to call a meeting.”
“Yes?” I say, still hopeful.
“They’re pulling the PLUG. They’re tired of waiting.”
“What?”
“I did everything I could.”
“They can’t pull the plug,” I say, almost amused. “It’s a three book deal. They’ve already practically paid me for the first one.”
“Yes, they’ll be needing that advance money back,” Sifiso says. He is almost whispering. I have never heard him this quiet.
My mind somersaults.
“They’re being rash. I have the book in me, I just need to get it down on paper.”
Sifiso sighs. “That’s what we told them this time LAST year.”
“I can do it,” I insist, knowing that I can’t.
Sifiso is quiet.
“Look, Harris, you’re going through a dry patch. It happens to EVERYONE. I’m sure that something will come to you, but Starling & Co. won’t wait any longer. Their lawyer will contact you to agree on how you’ll pay them back.”
I laugh. And then I am angry.
“Those unclefuckers!” I shout, “We had a contract!”
“They held up their side of the contract for a year longer than legally required.”
“Whose fucking side are you on?”
“I’m on yours, Harris, but you haven’t given me anything to WORK with. Nothing, not a SCRAP!”
“Well, fuck you!”
“I understand that you’re angry…”
“You understand fuck-all, you lousy fuck. You’re fired!”
I chuck the phone against the wall and it springs apart. Fucking editors. Fucking publishing houses. Fucking banks taking my house away. Fucking phones that break every time you throw them. The rage builds up so quickly that I am no longer in control of my actions. I kick a pile of books in a clumsy stumble and then push over the bookshelf next to it. It lands on its side with a crash. Dull thuds of books and spinning of ornaments on the floor. I pick up the fruit bowl and smash it. Send the kitchen bin flying with my foot. Then the pictures in my brain fade to white.
I come to, minutes later, surrounded by destruction. Blindviolence. The place is trashed and I don’t remember much of what I have done. I limp through the house; broken bits stick to the bottom of my shoes. When I get to the lounge I fall to the floor. Eve’s painting. It has a hole ripped through it: the blue-skinned man is decapitated. I cradle it awkwardly in my arms. I stroke his face. A thought hits me hard in the stomach: I have nothing. I am alone and I have nothing.
I zone out for a while and when I come back to my body, I am still bent double and stroking the painting, as if to soothe it. The paint near the tear is flaking off like skin and there is a muted colour underneath. I start to peel off the top layer and it reveals shapes, textures, more colours. Leaves. It’s a photo-realistic painting of people in a garden. I get a knife and scrape the paint off the canvas in the areas where the paint won’t peel. I unearth strelitzias, ivy, bougainvillea, jacaranda in bloom. A scorched lawn. A family. Conservative-looking parents: father choking in a dark suit, mother in a floral sack, with icy eyes staring into the camera through horn-rimmed glasses. Both gripping the shoulder of a blonde-haired little girl as if to prevent her from running away. I turn the canvas around and tear off what is left of the brittle brown backing. There is a photo wedged in the wooden frame, the one the artist used to paint from. It’s faded: the trees have turned blue. The pencil scribble on the back says ‘Shaws, October 1979: Miles, Nicolette, Evelyn (10)’. I flip the photo around again and look carefully. It’s washed out and grainy. I recognise her cheekbones and her lips, the way she sticks her chin out. It’s Eve. She painted over her family portrait. I sit there for a while and think.