‘We were painting,’ said Treppie. ‘The house, I mean, and I saw him clutching his chest.’
‘And then he took a dive off the ladder,’ said Lambert. ‘Boom! On his head.’
‘Took a dive?’ asked the doctor.
‘That’s right,’ said Treppie. ‘That’s what happened. We all saw it.’
Then she also rather said yes, Pop fell on his head.
‘Like a warhead,’ Treppie still said, ‘but no bang, just a puff.’
‘Of dust,’ said Lambert.
‘Of dust,’ she said.
Were there any other relatives? the doctor asked. They said no, and the doctor said well, in that case he thought a police statement was perhaps unnecessary.
‘Superfluous,’ he said, and that’s what they all three said, as if they’d practised it all their lives, just for this moment.
‘Superfluous!’ As if in one voice.
‘Shame,’ said Treppie, ‘but at least he still had time to exercise his vote.’
‘And to see the house painted white,’ said Lambert.
‘Exercise in white,’ she said, and then she felt, no, her head was giving just a little more. Almost the same feeling as a piece of tooth chipping off. First the chip washes around a little in your mouth, then it gnashes between your other teeth, and then you take it out to see what it is. Oh, it’s a tooth, you think, throwing it away. Wear and tear. But now there’s another chip gone. In her head.
They laughed at her about that ‘exercise in white’, all of them, not that she could see what was so funny, but she didn’t care. Everything had gone off well at that post-mortem.
She was still in bandages the day Pop was cremated. Treppie’s fingers were in plaster and Lambert was on his crutches.
She insisted: no coffin. And no hole in the ground, either.
Ash.
Ash is light.
First she said they must throw out the ashes next to the Brixton tower where they’d gone to eat their take-aways that time, when they watched the lightning. The day Pop got so lucky with his scratch-cards. When Gerty was still with them.
Treppie said fine, that was also where he remembered Pop the best after that sermon Pop gave him about the high current and the dead earth. But he couldn’t very well scatter ash with his fingers in plaster now, could he?
A week or two later, Treppie took off the plaster with a screwdriver, right here in the lounge. All you saw were plaster-chips flying everywhere. Lambert’s foot was another story. It didn’t want to get better in the plaster. Had to be amputated. And all the time that box of ashes just stood there on the sideboard. Then one day she thought to herself, no, now she was going to make a plan before that ash got cold and forgotten. So she dug a hole in the yard, next to Gerty, and threw the ashes into the hole. Not even three hands’ full. And half of it blew away, too.
She added to the writing that was already there on the wall, with a ball-point. They didn’t have any yellow left:
Here lies Gerty Benade (and now also the ash of Pop ditto)
Mother of Toby Benade
and sweetheart dog of Mol ditto (and beloved by Mol ditto).
(Both) dead from lack of breath.
they’re
Now in dog’s heaven
where the dogs are seven eleven.
There was some new space underneath, where Gerty’s grave had sunk down a bit, so she added:
Just the way Pop dreamt it.
Mol looks up into the sky. Now her tears mustn’t start running down her cheeks.
Last time there were even roses for fireworks.
‘What you looking at, Mol?’
It’s Treppie. He’s come out on to the stoep.
Here comes Lambert, too. In his wheelchair. His other ankle’s also giving in, the one that was always so weak.
Lambert’s much calmer ’cause of the stronger pills the doctor put him on. Patty-something.
He’s boss of the house now, he thinks. But that’s okay. He can’t corner her anymore like he used to. Now she’s faster than him. And she’s glad, ’cause when he doesn’t take his pills he’s especially full of shit.
Ever since Wonder Wall painted over his paintings, and since he’s been in the wheelchair, he doesn’t paint any more. And he doesn’t dig his hole either. Now he sits and watches TV all day. There’s just about nothing left of that big heap he dug out for his hole. Most of it got rained away and then things started growing on it. Last year, on Christmas Day, Treppie threw that watermelon on to the heap, the one they were too full to eat after Lambert’s braai. The watermelon went rotten, right there on top of that heap. Then, would you believe it, the other day she looked out of the back window and saw shoots growing all over the heap. And before long the heap was full of big, green leaves with watermelons sticking out like bums in the sun. Treppie says it’s a miracle. He says it wasn’t exactly seed that fell on fertile soil. But then again, he said, watermelons were like that. Very grateful plants. They grew from fuck-all, anywhere, any time. That’s why there was a song like ‘Sow the seed of the watermelon’. A folk song, said Treppie, was something that became popular ’cause everyone understood it, and in this case everyone ate it, too. He said he’d never heard of anyone who hadn’t enjoyed watermelon at some time or another. He hadn’t thought of it before, but that would really be a good idea for the NP’s flag, if they ever needed a new one, ’cause that little sun and those stripes hadn’t fooled anyone. That’s in the election, of course. Not that she can be bothered. The ANC party after the election looked a lot more jolly. At least they sang and danced, even old Mandela, though he took just one tiny sip of his champagne. And guess what, someone had taught that Niehaus how to dance. Treppie said it just showed you, you’d never think a dominee would be game for such high kicks. If FW wanted to get anywhere he’d have to take dancing lessons from the ANC. Marike too. It was good for frowns, Treppie said.
They spent whole days in front of the TV, watching all the parties after the election and listening to the speeches and things at the Union Buildings. If Pop had been here he would’ve wanted them all to go to Pretoria together, just for the occasion. That’s what she told them. But Treppie said they’d be able to see everything much better on TV. And, they should remember, there wouldn’t be any bullet-proof glass for the likes of them. But as far as she was concerned that wouldn’t have been necessary. Heathens, Jews and Mohammedans were gathered there together, and everyone was quite jolly, without bullet-proofing. Even the aeroplanes didn’t shoot. They flew over with rainbows of smoke coming out of their tails. The cannons were shot off, yes, but that was just into the sky for the new president. And, mind you, if she had a cannon she would also have shot off a cannonball here out of the heart of Triomf for old Mandela, ’cause he walks so upright and he took everyone’s hands and he said, what was past was past, everyone must roll up their sleeves and look to the future now.
Treppie said, ja, well, no fine, with or without rolled-up sleeves, but he wasn’t so sure about Marike. She looked even more like a missionary in Africa now with that bandaged hat of hers. If she didn’t watch out, they’d throw her into a three-legged pot and make pot luck out of her. But that wasn’t the most important thing, Treppie said. The most important thing was that they should never again say the word ‘kaffir’. Not in their own house and also not outside. What was past was past, he said, and it applied to them too. Lambert said he wasn’t so sure about that, but it was fine with her.