‘We thought we’d leave straight away last night, so you could have some privacy,’ Pop says, trying to soft-soap Lambert, but Lambert just says ‘Uh!’ like an ape.
Let her look at this hair again. Lots of curls that jump back quickly when you pull them out and then let go again. What’s this sticky stuff here? Sis!
Now Toby’s on the bed too, lock, stock and barrel. He wants to say, hullo, Lambert, but all he gets is a kick. He’s sniffing in the wrong place. Come, Toby, come sit here with your missus.
Lambert holds his head. He wipes the drops off his face, then he holds his head again.
She must go look in the kitchen dresser, Pop says. There’s some Panado there. And while she’s in the house she can bring a towel so Lambert can dry himself off.
Maybe Pop wants to talk to Lambert on his own. He tells Treppie to take Molletjie and go and buy a Coke at Ponta do Sol. Lambert’s Cokes are finished. But Treppie doesn’t want to. He wants to be here so he can hear the father-to-son talk. Her too, she also wants to hear it. She stands behind the door and peeps through the chink. But Pop says nothing. He says if Treppie’s got something to say, then he must say it now. All he wants to say is that he’s here to support Lambert.
Lambert needs more than fucken support, Treppie says. All the Panados in the world won’t take Lambert’s headache away. And all the Cokes under the sun won’t change the facts. And he, Treppie, thinks that what Lambert needs after a night like last night is a beer. He’s sure he can find a beer in one of these two fridges.
Facts, yes, she also wants to hear about those facts, but all she hears is ‘eeny-meeny-miny-mo’. It’s Treppie. She stretches her neck. He’s standing in front of the fridges, pointing to each one in turn as he says his rhyme to determine which one to open. It’s the Fuchs, the one that’s been burnt black all down the sides.
‘Lambert,’ he says. ‘This thing’s leaking again, isn’t it?’
Treppie tries to open the fridge. She can’t see him, but she can hear him pushing and pulling the fridge. Then there’s a ‘boom!’ Treppie almost falls right on to his backside. He’s pulled the door clean out of the fridge. Its rubbers hang down from the sides, burnt to cinders. ‘Kaboof,’ goes the door as Treppie throws it on to the floor. Now he must be looking into the open fridge ’cause he’s brushing soot and stuff from his face.
‘Jesus,’ says Treppie. ‘I thought I knew what a burn-out looked like, but this looks more like the eye of Etna!’
Who’s poor old Etna now? And why’s her eye burnt out? It doesn’t sound like a fact, it sounds more like a fairytale to her.
Did he stick his immersion heater into the Fuchs or something, Treppie asks Lambert. Or his dipstick? In that case he must have been overheating something terrible — no decency, as usual.
‘Or,’ says Treppie, ‘maybe it couldn’t take a service. Probably too old for servicing. And to think of all those leaks we had to weld! But some things are simply beyond redemption. Those kind of things just fuck out, anyway. Boom! But, well, we did our best, didn’t we, Lambert? And this kind of mistake happens in the best of families. Or what am I saying, hey, Pop?’
Let her go fetch the Panado. All this talking is just a lot of rubbish. She wants it to be tomorrow so they can go vote and get it over and done with. And if the house has to get painted, then let it get painted and be finished. Maybe they’ll all feel better and a bit stronger then. Hope springs eternal, Treppie always says, and as far as she can see, she’s the only one with any hope left, although she’s not sure she wants to put much hope on a white house. It’s really just the roof that matters. The rest is the rest. She almost feels like this year should start all over again. It’s been one long struggle to get everything fixed and ready. First this, then that, then the other thing. And for what? Sweet blow all! And there was nearly another disaster to top it all ’cause right at the last minute they went and shifted the election date all over the place as though it was a Shoprite trolley. First to the one side, then the other, and then the far side as well. Now there are no fewer than three days for the voting. Today, tomorrow, and the next day. And all of a sudden tomorrow’s a holiday, too. Wonder Wall sent them a letter saying they don’t work on holidays, so Treppie phoned them up — she was with him, at the Westdene public phone — and told them they must understand, nicely now, that this was an ad-hoc holiday, and a contract was a contract. They must watch their step, otherwise he’d take them to the small claims court. So they said, no, fine, sorry, they’d come.
Let her first go and see if it’s safe in the den. She can see neither Treppie nor Lambert. Just Pop, looking down at the floor. He’s puffing out clouds of smoke.
Now Treppie appears in the gap between the door and the frame. He’s taken a beer out of the Fuchs. Why does that beer can look like it’s got a bulge on one side? Treppie takes the beer to Lambert, going round the other side of the bed. ‘Down a Lion!’ is all she hears.
Right. If Lambert’s drinking beer, then he must be feeling better. She pushes open the door.
‘Watch out, Mol!’ It’s Pop. Now what? Why must she watch out all of a sudden? ‘Ka-pssshhhht!’ Treppie’s spraying Lambert full in the face with the beer, a long white jet, and she’s getting some of it too.
‘Oh, sis, God in heaven!’
Her front is full of foam and little white crumbs.
Lambert looks like he wants to murder Treppie, but he half falls over instead. That’s also why Treppie keeps standing there — he knows Lambert’s useless. Chuck that towel this side, he motions to her. Sis, now she smells of beer.
So sorry, Treppie says, passing Lambert the towel. Here, wipe off your face.
Ja, always so sorry, this Treppie. And what about her housecoat? Lambert sits up on the bed with his face in the towel. He doesn’t wipe off anything. He just sits there. But she can see his cheeks, they’re bulging, just like that beer can. Let her quickly put these Panados down where he can reach them, before he explodes like that beer. Once was enough, thank you.
Pop gets up. ‘Come,’ he says. ‘Let’s leave Lambert for a while so he can wake up in peace.’
‘Ag never! He’s as strong as a horse, man.’
Treppie makes rude movements to show how strong Lambert is.
‘And horses like him usually have wonderful horsey-stories to tell, especially when they’ve had a birthday as good as old Lambert here’s just had.’
Pop must look, and she must look, Treppie says, Lambert’s having a big birthday, it’s a birthday for Africa. They must sit, here’s a chair, and here’s another, and there’s even a crate for him, ’cause now they’re going to visit nicely here with Lambert in his den, on his birthday.
She doesn’t visit where there’s vomit, she wants to say, but she says nothing. She can see he’s the one who wants to tell all the stories, not Lambert, even though he’s on a crate and not a pulpit. And when Treppie wants to tell stories, then you’d better just sit and listen, otherwise you don’t hear the end of it, especially when it’s a bullshit-story. Just listen how he’s lying to Lambert now about how the girl they found for him wasn’t just first choice. About how she was such a livewire, you could just see it immediately there in the showcase at Cleopatra’s Creole Queens. That’s what makes Treppie’s bullshit-stories so terrible. They’re not outright lies, they’re semi-lies he builds on to. And it’s not like he first tells the truth and then adds on at the end. He lies all the way through the story, as far as he goes, and after a while you don’t know what’s what any more. Now he’s saying she was a livewire in a showcase, a dynamo and a back-kicker and a high-powered escort and a Voortrekker of a woman — with enough volts to set Lambert’s compass permanently due north.