That I have never been
Loved like this before
‘Jesus, Lambert, what have you done to your hand, man?’
His hand? Okay. If she wants to know. His tongue feels like it’s moving in slow motion as he tells her. About time that zings, about how all your birthdays tick past, about how Treppie told him you can make that tick go tick once more, about how he wanted to show Treppie a thing or two, but his hand went right through the dresser, and what a big joke that was, a big hole, and his mother pissed herself from all the laughing and everything.
‘But what’s a little hole, after all? Now things can breathe a little.’
‘And that other hand, Lambert, what happened there?’
The plaster-hand? That plaster still looks fine to him.
Christ! How did she get his belt loose and his zip open so quickly?
‘Ooh, Big Boy, and all in red, too!’
‘You mean my fingertips? That’s nothing, man. My uncle pushed me, by accident of course, got stuck in an escalator.’
‘No, I mean that plaster, man.’
She must go nice and easy with his plaster-hand, but she grips it too hard. Ouch, fuck! What does she know, anyway? Does she really want to know? Okay, let him tell her then. Does she have any idea how hard it is to file open a compressor, does she know how poisonous the oil is, would she know what to do if she got it on to her hand one day? He knows, he’s an old hand with fridges. But that still doesn’t mean you won’t get hurt if people grab too hard. Not that that’s the point, the point is there’s nothing these two hands of his can’t do. Look! She must look at his hands!
‘Maybe you’re handy with fridges, honey, but your hands are a bit too rough for women. Have you ever had one at all, hey?’
‘Of course! Plenty! There’s this girl from the Jehovahs. She gets the hots from Exodus, from the frogs that jump, in the lounge here, and the pillar of fire, that kind of thing. She fancies me, that one, and I give her quite a go, but she isn’t my type, she’s too, um, how shall I say?’
Too what? Where’s the word he’s looking for? Just in front of him in the air here.
Fuck! Here go his pants now. Speedo and all! Down, over his knees!
‘Your uncle’s advice if it gets too hot. Sorry, man, but you’re also not exactly my type!’
All he sees is patent leather. Flash! Out! Hey!
Tackle her! But his feet stick to the ground. Just a bush of shiny hair in his hands. Without a head. Fuck! Trying to run away, hey! Just wait!
Ouch! He feels blood. He’s flat on his backside. Ow, Jesus!
‘Fucken whore! Fucken rotcunt. Fucken cheapskate! Stupid Swiss roll of a slut!’
He feels his nose. It’s still bleeding. He wipes the blood on to his naked leg. Flossie doesn’t want to go any further. Nor does he. He can’t. He’s fucked out of his mind. Klipdrift and beers and Blush. Out of the bottle, out of the cans, out of the box.
He took the stags and smashed them, mountains and all, one by one against the ceiling. He stashed the Fuchs full of sheets and papers and then he set the whole lot on fire. He stoked the fire in the fridge till it made a soft ‘boof!’ sound. And then he sat for a long time, watching the long, thin lines of blue smoke coming out of the seals. ‘Tip-tip-tip’, he heard as something dripped out of the condenser pipes at the back. One down, one to go. He must still sort out the Tedelex.
But he didn’t forget the postbox. He ripped it out of the pole and swung it round and round, like a slingweight, until it was going nice and fast. Then he lobbed it, one shot, through the lounge window. Ting-a-ling! Boom! Crash! Sail on, silverbird.
He rattled those loose slabs on their walls till all the dogs in Triomf were barking. Till they were going strong. And he started crying, and after a while the dogs were also howling much better.
Then he thought, wait, let him get into his dream car. He started her up, ’cause he wanted to drive off somewhere, to get lost good and proper, God alone knows where, with all those dogs running after him. Like he was in a circus or something.
But now it’s raining. Thunder and flashes of lightning crash into his ears. And now he just sits.
He looks up into the sky. He’s sopping wet. Hot and cold on his face. Blood and tears and rain. Where’s Mary motherfucker’s curls, let him wipe his face.
He rubs his dick. For what, anyway? For fuck-all. It feels like it’s getting smaller and smaller. But he rubs, anyway, harder and harder. It’s all he can think of doing.
REPORTBACK 
It’s almost one o’clock in the afternoon, 26 April.
Mol stands in the passage, behind Treppie. They’re in front of Lambert’s inside door. She’s holding on to Pop’s sleeve, here behind her. At first she and Pop didn’t want to come, but Treppie said no, this was their baby too, they couldn’t start ducking out now. It was time for Lambert’s reportback.
You wouldn’t guess Treppie was given a talking to just a few hours ago. He’s so full of the devil it looks like he’s ready to start hopping. When they got home this morning he just smashed his way through the hole in the lounge window. Glass breaking everywhere. No, he said, now he was entering a war zone. Doors and thresholds were for civilians, and if they wanted to play doorsy-doorsy under such circumstances they were free to do so, they must just remember FW said war wasn’t for sissies. Then she said as far as she could remember FW said nothing about doors and thresholds, he said elections weren’t for sissies. Treppie said, no, now she was really falling behind, hadn’t she realised they were holding their own fucken election here in this house and they were allowed as much foul play as they liked, ’cause the playing fields under their feet were never, ever going to get level.
Then she gave Pop one look and they both knew they were just going to have to shuddup, ’cause Treppie’s head was like a merry-go-round. Even after three mugs of coffee.
So, here she stands behind him now. His one shoulder’s twitching again, like a broken jack-in-the-box. He signals to them they must get ready, he’s about to start knocking on the door. Not with his knuckles, she sees, but with a shoe that hasn’t got a heel. He found the shoe near the front gate. A small, black shoe made of patent leather. When he saw that shoe he said it looked like someone had popped Mary Poppins right out of her shoes, and he just hoped, for their sake and for the whole of Triomf’s sake, that the rest of her was unscathed. And intact.
Intact.
‘Rat-a-tat-tat-tat’, Treppie knocks. No answer. There’s a funny smell coming from the den. Treppie raises his eyebrows. What should he do now? Lambert’s coffee’s getting cold here in his other hand. How’s she supposed to know? He won’t listen to her in any case. Pop pulls at her from behind. He doesn’t want to go any further. He wants to go sleep, she knows. Where he got the strength from, she doesn’t know, but this morning he still wanted to patch up the front window with the plastic cover Lambert uses to cover Flossie when it rains.
‘Leave a shooting-hole,’ Treppie said, but it wasn’t necessary ’cause that plastic was no longer covering Flossie. It was under Flossie. And it was rotten with holes. Flossie was sopping wet. She stood there like a little bulldozer, her bumper pushed up against the prefab wall. She looked properly pooped.
Now Treppie pushes open the door. He has to shove with his shoulder, there’s so much stuff in front of the door. He makes high-stepping motions like the kaffirs when they march. The coffee goes ‘plops-plops’ over his hand. Come help, he signals to her with the shoe.
‘Viva Lambert, viva!’ he shouts as the door gives way.
‘Whoof!’ says Toby, pushing past everyone’s legs to get through.