‘Come, come here, Mary, come look! Now this was the biggest job of all, hey, nearly broke my back here, just rubble, rubble, rubble. There was another town here, a black one, just bricks, bricks, bricks, kaffirs didn’t live under plastic and cardboard in those days, hey! But now it’s big enough for the petrol, for an emergency, you know. You never know, that’s what I say. And my uncle agrees. A person must be ready, hey? What do you say? For when the shit hits the fan. You know what I mean, hey? Then we hit the great road to the North. I checked on the map. In the CNA. Will take a day or so. Then we’re over the border. First we make a picnic and then we make a new beginning.’
She doesn’t look like she’s making the connections. His hole is open, his fridge is open and he’s wide open. All his stuff is lying here, open. But she’s not looking. Maybe she wants to look at the painting again, at his map.
‘Check, here’s our route, in red, here, here, here.’
Christ, she must be able to see a dotted line! The line’s in red, too. It goes over the lawn, the molehills, the black arrows, the yellow arrows, his mother’s body and the tennis ball in her mouth. He points it out to her.
‘Tennis ball in the mouth. Didn’t have enough space here. Dog’s games, you know? But it’s my mother, this one. Nice lady, full of sports!’
He feels too big, standing here next to his painting. His body doesn’t want to shrink. He tries to grin but his mouth doesn’t want to. Grin! That’s his mother, she’s enough to make anyone laugh. Fuck! Let’s try the mermaid. Maybe she’ll think it’s cute. That mermaid is actually her!
‘And this is you on the car here, Mary. I dreamt of you, long before you even knew me.’
Maybe she doesn’t like laughing at herself. Well then, let her laugh at him then, him with his big ears and his sideburns, sitting in the driver’s seat.
‘And that’s me, ready to take you wherever you want to go, to the wild open spaces …’
At last! A smile! About fucken time too. Just a half-smile. But that’s all he needs. Take the gap, Lambertus, take it!
‘… to the sleepy villages, where the lion roars tonight! Hawhimbawe! Hawhimbawe!’
His mother always laughs when he sings that song. Ever since he was small. But now the smile’s gone again. Maybe she thinks his plan isn’t good enough. Maybe she doesn’t like the sound of his lions.
He points, north, north, north, he points where he wrote in the names this afternoon. Those are not petrol stops. The petrol’s been sorted out. They’re just piss-stops. Pretoria, Nylstroom, Naboomspruit, Messina. He wrote Messina in big letters. Across the border. His plan is fine. There’s nothing wrong with his plan.
‘And she’ll make it, Mary, don’t you worry, she’ll make it. I tuned her, I checked her points, I tapped off her oil. And in any case, we’ll take Flossie with us, the beach buggy, for spares, for in case. As we say in Afrikaans, there’s always a light at the end of the wagon-trek. Hey, old Mary, man, even if it’s a long way to Tipperary, hey? You know that song?’
Fuck, he’s really doing his very best here. Maybe he should sing instead, he’s in any case singing for his smiles tonight. It’s a long way to Tip-perrar-reee! She’d better open that red mouth of hers for a change. He can’t do all the fucken talking all fucken night long!
‘Listen, my china.’ Here she comes now, but she’s coming too slowly. Oh, shit, what now? Now she’s swaying her backside at him. She’s even turned around so he can see her backside.
‘I haven’t got no time to waste, hey. I’m a busy lady!’
Fuck! Let him get out of the way here. She mustn’t come and act all high and mighty and start swinging her backside around. He’s also been fucken busy!
Jesus. Now she’s on the bed, legs and all. Loosening buttons. Yes, that’s what she’s doing, she’s unbuttoning her blouse. Lots of buttons. What’s that underneath? A bow, a fucken little red bow. In the middle. Between the tits. The tits are in a see-through bra. Black net-stuff with holes in it. Sit, she motions to him, he must come and sit here next to her on the bed. Please, God! Those long red nails!
‘Hey, hey, wait now, Mary, man, let’s not rush things now, man. Come, there’s nice chairs here, man, look, specially for you!’ Pop’s chair. His mother’s chair. Next to each other. ‘Nice chairs, I promise, family chairs, they come a long way, they can tell stories, these chairs, man, like you won’t believe, stories for Africa.’
It’s the truth. He’s not talking nonsense now. Right. That’s better. She’s buttoning up again. Yes, better.
‘As you wish. I hope you know what you’re doing. Time is money, you know that?’
Of course he knows. What’s the time there on Treppie’s clock — radio? Only twenty to twelve. He checks his watch. That’s fine. The night’s still young, as Treppie always says. What’s she getting so worried about, anyway? There she sits in his mother’s chair now. It looks funny, but at least she sits nicely, with her legs closed.
‘Don’t worry, just relax, Mary, I’ll get you a drink. What do you like? I also got brandy and Coke. Come on, what do you say?’
‘I don’t drink on the job, Cleopatra’s house rules.’
Why’s she grinning again? It’s the oldest trade in the world, after all. Her kind fancies a snort. She mustn’t think she can come and spin him a lot of crap here.
‘Cleopatra’s foot in a fish tin, man!’
‘Just Coke, I mean it.’
‘Suit yourself, lady.’ If he can just get a snort or two into her. But he must tune her nicely now. Don’t rush a woman. That’s what Treppie always says when his mother takes so long to do things. When a woman’s revs finally get going, they really run high. Then you struggle to bring them down again. He says he’s seen it time and time again.
‘I have lemons, I have ice, might I make you a Lee Martin, just like in the Spur? You know what a Lee Martin is? No? Crushed ice and lemon and things?’
She shakes her head. No.
Looks like she doesn’t know bugger-all. Fucken weird, that’s all he can say. Maybe the Cleopatras don’t go to Spur.
‘Never too late to learn.’ Take a deep breath. ‘Never too late, my baby.’
Mary just sits there, looking at her nails. She says fuck-all. It looks like that ‘baby’ went straight over her head, like she didn’t even feel it. Maybe he said it too early or something. Fucken worse than a jammed compressor! And he can’t very well go and kick her, but he’s tempted, hell, a nice kick under the backside is exactly what she needs. There go his knees now, jerking up and down under the skin. It must be ’cause he’s thinking about kicking her. He mustn’t kick her. She’d fall to pieces, first shot. No, he won’t kick her. He’ll just stand here next to his work bench. Stay nice and cool. He grabs the edge of the work bench, his service counter that he prepared so neatly, with so many nice things on it. Ai, fuck. He hears her lighting up, here right behind his back. That’s what he needs too, a good old cigarette. Sit for a while, in Pop’s deep chair, with his legs stretched out in front of him so his knees can stop jerking. Yes, a cigarette.
A thought begins to form in his head, but he can’t get hold of it properly. Come now, Lambert! Got it! It’s the thought of an ashtray, and an ashtray is the other thing he forgot. A carpet and an ashtray. Can you believe it? Most of the time he tips his ash on to the floor and he stubs his cigarettes against the wall, just anywhere. He had to sweep so many cigarette butts out of here … never mind, she won’t know the difference. He picks up one of the bowls with painted stags and passes it over to her.
‘Ashtray.’
‘Thanks,’ she says.
‘Some ashtray, hey.’ Mary looks at the ashtray. Then she turns it round and looks at the back.
‘I inherited it from my grandmother. Grand old lady. They did it in style in those days.’