And then Pop always looks Treppie in the eye, and he says, ‘Ja, now there was a first-class statesman for you.’
‘Oh yes,’ Treppie says next, ‘oh yes, old brother.’ Treppie’s voice drips with honey when he says ‘old brother’, and then he laughs like the devil himself.
And Lambert says, ‘Oh yes,’ shaking his head and swilling the brandy round and round in his glass.
And then they sit there and they say nothing, and she stands in the doorway and looks at them there where they sit.
4. POLISHING THE BRASS
It’s Wednesday morning and Lambert’s been shouting and screaming ever since sunrise. He wants everything fixed, now, on the double. How can they let the house look like a pigsty when the NPs are coming, he shouts at them from the den at the back. What will the NPs think? What will they think of the curtain that’s still hanging over the pelmet? And the postbox that Treppie went and fetched off the street and then just chucked back on to the lawn, still full of dents, with its silver paint coming off.
After he blacked out, he was flat on his back for a long time. On his mattress. That much he figured out. The whole of Sunday, and all of Monday too, ’cause it was Tuesday morning before he could sit up straight again. Then he wanted Coke. Clean Coke. Coke always brings him round after a fit. They say everything goes better with Coke, and that’s what he says, too.
He told his mother to buy him a See and a Scope at the café in Thornton. They sell Sees there. The shop at the bottom of Toby Street just sells kaffir rubbish. And then on Tuesday night he ate half a loaf of white bread with Sunshine D, golden syrup and polony. Treppie came into the den and said he shouldn’t eat so much white bread, ’cause he was still going to have to fit into his leathers before his birthday, wink-wink.
He knows Treppie’s taught him a lot, and he owes him, but he can’t fucken take it when Treppie winks at him like that.
He got up earlier this morning to see if his mother was hanging up the curtain by those hooks that go into the rings on the railing, but then his ears started zinging, so he came and lay down on his bed again. When he’s had a fit, Coke helps for his stomach, but it doesn’t stop the zinging in his ears.
Here comes Treppie now, walking down the passage. He knows it’s Treppie ’cause Treppie doesn’t drag his feet like his mother, and his one foot doesn’t sound louder than the other, like Pop’s. Treppie walks like a cat. You could even say Treppie creeps up on you. Don’t creep up on me like that, he always says, ’cause it feels like Treppie’s peeping into his head when he stands so close to him, peeping at everything he’s fucken thinking, long before he even realises Treppie’s there.
‘What you reading there, old boy?’ Treppie asks. He’s leaning against the inside door of the den. He says ‘old boy’ with a twist in his voice, like what he really means is ‘old dickface’.
Treppie says he, Lambert, has the longest, thickest dick he’s seen in his entire life. He doesn’t see how Treppie can know that, ’cause he’s never been naked in front of him. But when he tells Treppie this, Treppie says he’s so fucken far gone he doesn’t even know when he’s starkers and when he’s wearing clothes. Treppie talks a lot of crap. If Treppie knows how big his dick is, it must be ’cause his pants fall down when he fits. His mother pushes washing pegs between his teeth to stop him from biting off his tongue. Sometimes when he wakes up his pants are gone. Then he sees them hanging up on the line outside. His mother says he pisses in his pants when he fits. How’s he fucken supposed to help it? She can be glad he doesn’t shit in his pants, too.
‘I said, what you reading there, old boy?’
‘Nothing.’ He doesn’t want to talk to Treppie. He can feel he’s still not a hundred per cent, and when he’s not a hundred per cent he can’t handle trouble. If he goes off the rails when he’s not a hundred per cent, then he really fucks out. Then he fucks out in a big way.
‘Such bad manners! A person can’t even ask what you’re reading.’ Treppie creeps up on him and snatches the pamphlet from his hands. ‘So, let’s have a look.’ Treppie knows exactly what it is he’s reading, but now he wants to put on a whole fucken show again.
‘Jesus, this fancy print is so skew, not even a dog can read it. What? “The constitutional protection of minorities. Point one: language and culture”. Hell, Lambert, but this is high falutin’ stuff you’re reading here, old boy. What “minorities” do they mean now?’
Treppie’s acting stupid. Lambert knows this game; it’s something Treppie does a lot, just to torment him. He knows he must just not say anything. If he does, then Treppie takes whatever he says and drop-kicks it up into the blue sky, to hell and back, and then he asks: Where was I now? Then he acts like he’s also looking for the answer. There’s just no end to him. His mother’s right. Treppie’s a fucken devil, but not a straight one; he’s a devil with a twist, a twisted devil with a twitch in the shoulder. It’s a nervous tick, as he himself says.
‘Is that postbox fixed yet?’ he asks Treppie. He knows he must try and get out of this thing now. He gets up on his elbow, but his ears are still zinging. When he closes his eyes, he sees green. His tongue still feels lame. Down in his back too. Lame.
‘Hey? I asked if you fixed the postbox yet.’
‘What for?’ says Treppie.
‘The NPs. They’re coming today.’ He knows what he just said must sound very dumb. Treppie always gives the NP hell when they come here. Why should he give a shit about the postbox?
‘So what?’ Treppie says.
‘Pop!’ he shouts. ‘Pop!’ Pop always helps him out with Treppie. But these days Pop’s help isn’t worth much. He’s tired. So he, Lambert, has to fend for himself. Here comes Pop now, down the passage. First the hard foot, then the soft foot. ‘Click-clack, click-clack’ go the blocks as he walks.
‘Pop, take Treppie with you to get the welder and the tools, and go fix up the postbox. That metal base is still okay.’
Pop doesn’t say anything. He traipses around the room, looking for the welder.
‘Hell, brother, you only let him order you around, hey!’ says Treppie, twisting the words hard when he says ‘brother’.
‘Come now, Treppie,’ says Pop. ‘Cut it out, man.’ He says it softly. He can’t talk hard any more. He’s holding Treppie by the sleeve, but Treppie jerks his arm loose.
‘Listen to me, brother, don’t come in here and push me around. I’m talking to old Lambert here. We’re talking about “minorities” — ja, a minor past, a minor present and a very minor future. We’re talking fucken deep stuff here, man. First the NP wastes time like it’s for Africa, and now they’re trying to make it a “minor” thing. Also for Africa. Beats me. Too fucken deep for me. But if you’re as deep in the shit as old Lambert here,’ says Treppie, kicking Lambert’s scrap against the door, ‘then a person has to think very deep …’
‘Treppie,’ Pop says, ‘give it a break now, man.’
‘Old Lambert, here,’ Treppie says, like he’s explaining something completely new to Pop, ‘old Lambert’s someone who always does his homework, you see. He’s scared he’ll have nothing to say the next time he sees that piece with the bare shoulders, that cute one from the varsity, the Rôndse Ôfrikônse Univarsity. So now he’s swotting up these fancy pamphlets.’
Treppie, he thinks, is just like a dungfly buzzing bzzt, bzzt, against a window. But with a real fly, at least you can open a window and chase the bugger out. You don’t even have to touch the blarry thing.