‘That story about when we became a republic, about the corsages and all that stuff your mother talks about when she’s pissed, it’s all a lot of lies, that. The part about making the corsages is true, we did that, but that was the night you went and threw your first fit. Just when things were starting to get going here. We were still having a big party and then your eyes did a somersault for real and you rolled right over into the trays of flowers and you shat and pissed and vomited all at the same time, right on top of the whole business. And then you lay there and took one fit after another till your back was as bent as a bucket-handle. Then me and Pop grabbed hold of you and strapped your arms and legs tight with our belts and took you to the hospital. They looked us up and down there and stuck up their noses and said you’d drunk too much brandy; epileptics shouldn’t drink alcohol, didn’t we know that? But if you fitted again, they said, with or without brandy, we must take an ice-cream stick and shove it into your mouth so you don’t bite off your tongue.’
Treppie lights another cigarette. He pulls hard and blows out clouds of smoke.
‘And from that day on you’ve spoilt every fucken party we’ve ever had here. You break every fucken thing in the house and you make shit as far as you go.
‘Ja,’ says Treppie. He kills the flame that’s been burning in his hand all this time. Blue sulphur-smoke hangs in the air. ‘And as far as Republic Day’s concerned — no one went to Pretoria that day, and no one made six hundred rand, and you didn’t charm anyone out of their paper money there by acting crazy with your donation list. ’Cause you weren’t even there. That’s what. Pop took those trays full of corsages, full of your vomit and your shit, and he buried them just like that, right here in the backyard. Ribbons and all. All the trouble, all the money — our money from the fridge business — into its glory, ’cause Baby Benade, the lamb of our loins, ’cause Lambertus the third — surprise, surprise! — turned out to be a genetic cul-de-sac. But that’s too difficult for you, so just think of a bulldozer in a sinkhole instead.’
Treppie dusts off his hands, as if he’s got dirt or fluff on them. ‘Food for thought, hey?’ he says, and he winks at Lambert as he starts walking back into the house.
‘Hey,’ says Lambert. He has to clear his throat. His voice won’t come out so nicely. ‘Hey,’ he begins again, ‘what about my girl, for my birthday …’
‘We’ll have to see, old buddy, we’ll just have to wait and see,’ Treppie says, and then he winks one last time.
In that moment, just as Treppie tries to walk here, right past his face, back into the house, Lambert takes one step forward, on to a piece of glass. But he doesn’t feel anything.
He takes Treppie from behind, by the neck. Such a thin little neck. He gets a nice grip, on Treppie’s throat. Then he drags him inside, kicking and squirming through the kitchen, where Treppie kicks over the Primus, spilling its cold Jungle Oats all over the lino. He drags him all the way down the passage. As they go, the loose blocks on the floor jump up. He drags him past the bathroom, past Pop and his mother’s room, right into the lounge, where his mother’s standing on a beer crate, trying to get the curtain rings back on to the railing and the railing back in under the pelmet. Gerty’s with her. He hears Gerty bark a scared little bark. He sees his mother turn around. Her mouth is open. She swings the railing with her as she turns, she gets such a fright.
‘Hey! You two!’ she shouts. Treppie gets the railing full in the face. Mol swings again. She mustn’t go swinging railings now. He feels the railing slide off his shoulder. He throws Treppie against the wall.
‘Hic’ goes Treppie as he hits the wall, sliding down on to his backside.
‘You just stay there for a while,’ he says to Treppie. He takes one big step towards his mother and rips the railing out of her hands. Gerty jumps up against him. He kicks her, and she lets out a yelp as she flies through the air. Toby comes to look as well. He thinks it’s a game. He starts barking and gets two kicks. ‘Ow-whoo, ow-whoo!’ he cries.
‘You people think you can lie to me, hey?’ he says, bending the railing over his knee, curtain and all. It feels like a piece of tin. ‘People mustn’t lie to me!’ he says. He takes a jump and grabs hold of the pelmet. One end comes clean out of the wall. That’ll show them.
‘Go get yourself ready, Ma, I want to see you in the back room as soon as I’m finished here.’
He grabs Gerty’s green ribbing and the half-done yellow back part in one swipe, breaking the pins and pulling out the stitches on both sides. Fucken rubbish! Then he walks out the front door to the postbox on the lawn and kicks it with his bare foot so hard it smashes into the prefab wall.
He feels no pain. He feels fucken nothing. He picks up the postbox and throws it on to the neighbours’ roof. As it hits the corrugated iron it goes ‘boom!’, and then ‘doof-doof-doof’ as it rolls down. It hits the gutter, tips over and falls on to the ground with a thud. He hears someone swearing next door. Let them fucken swear!
Then he goes back into the house. Past Treppie, who’s still sitting against the wall in the passage. He leaves a trail of blood as far as he goes. He heads for the back room.
He sees Pop giving way in front of him. Good for him. Pop always goes and hides in the bathroom behind the door. Let him. He wants to go and tell lies. His mother’s already in the back room. She knows her place. Now he’ll first have to throw out that stinking dog of hers, ’cause she always sits there and looks. He doesn’t like dogs looking at him when he’s busy. And his mother had better keep her mouth shut. Nowadays she screams like someone’s slitting her throat or something. Well, she’d better watch out or he’ll squash her fucken voicebox to a pulp. They mustn’t come here and treat him like he’s a fucken idiot.
For a long time, Pop sat there with his fingers in his ears and his head against the cold middle hinge of the bathroom door. When he took his fingers out, Mol was quiet again. All he heard from the back room was sniffing. But now there were other noises too. People talking. Lambert talking to other people. Pop sat there for a long time, looking at himself in the piece of mirror in the bathroom cabinet. He looked blue and white, like stones. Then he went to the front to see who was talking, but by then they’d left already. It was the NPs. They’d dropped off their pamphlets and then got the hell out. And no wonder — the lounge looked like a hurricane had hit it. Lambert had a rag around his foot, with blood seeping through in a bright red stain. Treppie was holding a hand to a deep cut over his eye. And then Mol came out from the back, Gerty in her arms. Slowly and carefully she went and sat in her chair, Gerty still in her arms. Very slowly and carefully, like she was sore.
Later, when Pop saw Treppie locking the front gate with the chain for the night, he went out to have a word with him.
‘Treppie, man, listen to me, you can’t carry on like this with old Lambert. We’d better make a plan and find him a girl. Really. Otherwise he’s going to kill the lot of us here in this house before long.’
Then Pop picked up the dented postbox from where next door had thrown it back on to the grass, and he carried it through to the back, even though it was getting heavier and heavier in his hands. He put it down at the foot of Lambert’s bed.
‘Here’s your postbox, my boy. Tomorrow we fix it. First thing in the morning. I’ll help you, me and Treppie.’
Pop didn’t say anything to Mol. She was already sleeping, lying on her side in her housecoat, on the far side of their worn-out double mattress. She lay there with Gerty in her arms, the light from the naked bulb burning brightly above her head.