But now she’s starting her shit again. Here comes more loosening of buttons. This time it’s his buttons. Three, four, five, look how quickly she works those thin, brown hands of hers. Christ, those red nails here high up against his white skin! Well, at least it’s just here around the top. Don’t lose it now.
‘You know what we call this type of dance, Mary?’
She shakes her head so hard the curls whip into his nose.
‘Soft guava, we call it the soft guava.’
‘Papkoejawel! You think I don’t know that word?’ Mary laughs.
He doesn’t like that laugh. Is she trying to play the fool with him or something? Let him rather laugh along. Ha-ha-ha! Then he can button up his shirt again, pour himself another drink. If she wants to laugh she can sit down and laugh till she’s finished.
‘So, you can speak a bit of Afrikaans?’
Now she’s suddenly packing her cigarettes back into her bag. Where does she think she’s going? Maybe she thought he was talking about her guava.
‘Look here, man, what do you take me for? The man in the moon? Of course I can speak Afrikaans.’
‘I thought you were a Creole, from Creolia or someplace!’
‘Creolia? Ha-ha-ha! Very funny. A Creole, lat ek vir djou sê, Mister Ballroom Champ, is ma’ just a lekker coffee-colour dolly what can mix her languages. So if that’s your problem, if that’s what’s putting you off, I’ll just leave sommer right now. I’ve got my money. I’ve got nothing to lose. Time’s nearly up anyways.’
24:00, it says on Treppie’s clock — radio. Forty!
‘Please, please don’t go. I don’t mind. Really, I don’t.’
A darky. So, that’s what Treppie was making big eyes about. Well, he’s not bothered by a piece of coffee-skirt, if that’s what Treppie’s idea was. A bit of the dark stuff is no problem for him!
A neat brandy. Without Coke. Then he’ll be ready. ‘It’s all right, man, anyway, you are so nice and smart with your make-up and everything, I bet you can actually pass for white any time, Mary, hey? You get my drift? I mean, it can’t be too difficult for you. What about another Coke, hey? With half a tot? What do you say?’
Dead silence here behind him. What’s it this time? He turns round. Mary’s looking at him with wide eyes that shine like daggers.
‘You bastard! Look at you! Look at this place! Who the hell do you think you are, hey? You’re not even white, man, you’re a fucken backward piece of low-class shit, that’s what you are. Useless fucken white trash!’
‘Excuse me? What did you say there? Is there something wrong with my ears or is somebody calling me a piece of shit in my own house?’
Now all hell is loose. But no one can teach him anything about talking shit or making shit. If this off-white number doesn’t watch out he’ll knock her and all her shit as flat as a pancake! Yes, retreat, retreat, you’d better, you toffee-cunt. Let her, she can’t get further than that inside door. He sees her feeling for the inside door’s handle.
‘You’re too late, Mary, too fucken late! Rather give that hand of yours here.’ He locked that door before she came, early tonight, to keep out his mother. And Treppie. They said they were going out but you never know with them. Fuck, if only they were here now, then he could go and call them to come help a bit. Then they could all help him to put this cheeky slut in her place, for once and for all.
‘I said, let go of that door!’
Her breath’s on his face now. Her mouth is thin. She’s got lines round the outside of her mouth. ‘Zing!’ goes his head. Through the zing he picks up a song playing on the radio.
You are the sun
I am the moon
You are the words
I am the tune
Play me!
Forty years and a few seconds old! Fuck! She turns her face away. Red stuff on that Coloured cheek of hers.
‘Do you hear that, Mary? You must be nice to me now, hey. You’d better behave yourself now, hey! I don’t like spoilsports, that’s one thing I don’t, um, tolerate.’
Nice that he remembered that word.
‘Let go, you’re hurting me!’
She doesn’t sound very hurt to him. She sounds more like a coon-girl with designs in her head.
‘Don’t be a sissy, man. Your sort have seen it all. As long as you play nicely, you won’t get hurt. Got it?’
Another cigarette, that’s what he needs now. Matches. Where? In his shirt pocket, top pocket. He sees his shoes. They look too big. He sees them ’cause he’s not standing upright. He’s bent over forwards. His arms are hanging out. He must get back into his gentleman’s pose. He’s got half a hard-on after that bit of action, but it drops quickly again. This business must get back into swing. Christ, this is worse than fucken fridge repairs.
He tells her she must look on the crate, there next to the bed. In the Coke bottle.
‘Look, I even got you a rose, man, want to smell it? My mother is into roses, you know. Her whole life long. This one here is a Whisky Mac. But there are lots more. Prima Ballerina, Red Alec, Las Vegas Supreme. That last one is an orange one. Hell, I must tell you that story! You won’t believe it. We were in the HF Verwoerd Institute for the Mentally Retarded that day, me and my uncle, he put me up to it, when we became a republic, you know, at the Voortrekker monument.’
Must he go and take it out for her or what? There, let her take the fucken rose. Can’t she see he’s okay again?
‘Go on, smell it!’
Move it, slut! He waits for her to smell. Christ, no, he must get another drink. And this time he’ll stay right here in front of his counter. She mustn’t start getting scared of him now. That business a second ago was nothing.
‘So what’s your favourite colour, Mary? Come, sit down again, come, sit here by me, in my mother’s chair. Let’s make friends again, hey? Let’s talk nicely now, like civilised people, hey?’
‘Civilised! Hmph!!’
To hell with hmph! Now it looks like she doesn’t even want the rose. She’s singing something.
‘The night was heavy
And the air was alive
But she couldn’t push through.’
‘What was that, may I ask?’
Fucken full of shit, that’s what. And she mustn’t look up at the ceiling, she must look at him!
‘Just a song. You know Highveld Stereo, like all the songs they play, say just the things you want to say?’
Fucken chancer! What’s that she’s looking at now?
‘So tell me, Michelangelo, what’s all this here supposed to be?’
‘You can read, man, just read it.’
At least she wants him to tell her something. Stand up straight. Tummy in. Let him show her. Michelangelo. Who’s that?
‘It’s my gallery of foolproofs. Much better than that stupid Cindy Viljoen from Tuxedo Tyres. Blue bikini, pink bikini, they think they can fool me!’
‘Cindy Viljoen?’
‘Yes, man, old Cindy on the calendars, I had them all, from ’76, all round here, to keep track of the time, you know, but then I discovered it’s the same Cindy in the tyre, just with different hair and things. It was all the same. People are not stupid, you know. On last year’s calendar she had so much make-up on, even on her neck and all, past redemption, not even worth a retread. But these things here, they’ll last forever. I finished it yesterday, just for you. They can all fly now, you see? They don’t wear and tear like lawn-mowers, or cars or fridges. They work, like, like, um, like paradise!’
‘Huh?’
‘You still don’t get it? Look, they all got wings on. It’s like heaven. Everything can be an angel in heaven. Rats, cockroaches, everything. There’s even a mole, MOLE II. It’s my mother, you see, even she has wings there. Not in MOLE I, there she’s in a fridge, frozen mole, ready to be fired off, but that’s another story. I gassed all the moles this morning, Mary, so you don’t have to look at them pushing heaps with a mouthful of Swiss roll.’