‘I wish you luck,’ Pop says, smiling at the man, and now the feeling in his flesh runs like warm syrup through his bones and into his marrow, right down to his feet.
At first, he can’t get Molletjie started. His hand’s trembling, but then she takes, and he’s off, with all that noise around his ears. From close up it’s a lot of hooting and noise. He drives round the block, into Smit Street, and then under the bridge. He goes along Caroline Street until he hits Ontdekkers, towards the house.
He won’t say anything. He’ll show them later. Tonight. You should never announce good luck. He’ll still think of something. Maybe the drive-in, or a decent bottle of brandy. Or maybe not. Don’t be in a hurry. It’ll come, like all things on a good day.
He drives past Ponta do Sol and stops at Shoprite for bread and milk. As he walks up and down the shelves, everything feels different. He can buy anything he wants. He takes out the money and counts it. Seventy-four rand and a few cents. He puts it back in his pocket in a little roll and then closes his hand around the roll.
A tin of ham? A few tins of bully beef? Sardines? He’s really very tired of polony and golden syrup. Or he can go next door to Roodt Brothers Forty Years Meat Tradition and buy biltong and dry wors.
Pop smiles. No, he’ll just buy bread and milk.
What he does with the money has to be more of a thing. He feels a thought coming from far off. It bothers him for a while before he works out what it is. Oh yes, Lambert. Lambert’s birthday. New pants for Lambert.
No. Then it benefits only one of them. It must be something for everyone, all of them together. And it must be more than something you just buy, full-stop. It must be something that happens.
At the house he sees Mol looking at him all the time. In earlier years she would have said: So, Pop, what’s with you, why you smiling so much?
He just smiles straight back at her, right into her puzzled face.
Just you wait and see, Mol, before this day’s out you’ll be smiling too.
Pop walks round the back to fetch Lambert. His four hubcaps are lined up neatly in the sun, drying.
Flossie stands here in the backyard, on bricks. When Pop finds Lambert, he’s taping up Flossie’s back window for spray-painting. Every day Lambert does some more taping. Pop’s always telling him to get finished and spray her so the job can come out nice and even, but Lambert says it works on his nerves; he needs time to think, inbetween.
Lambert’s got big plans for Flossie. She must be their ‘long-distance vehicle’, he says, so Treppie can use Molletjie to drive himself up and down to the Chinese.
Flossie’s seats, he says, must be covered in light blue mock leather, to go with the midnight blue he’s still going to spray-paint her. But now he’s busy on the undercoat, which is yellow. Very yellow. How it’s ever going to get blue, Pop doesn’t know. But he doesn’t say anything, even though he feels they should use Flossie for Molletjie’s spare parts. Lambert must just stay busy. As long as he’s busy, he’s okay.
‘Come,’ says Pop, ‘let’s first fix that postbox of yours.’
‘Right,’ says Lambert. ‘I’ve drawn up a plan.’ He pulls a piece of paper out of his back pocket. It’s a drawing, a thing that looks like a tent with ropes above and below the ground, and around as well. As if a big storm’s coming, above and below the ground.
Lambert explains. They must weld the plate solidly on to the pipe. Then they take little arms of scrap iron, cut them at an angle on both sides, and weld them on to the pole on the one end, and on to the underside of the plate on the other. Then they can weld the postbox on to the top of the plate, also with arms.
‘We’ll show them what real welding looks like …’ says Pop. He doesn’t say anything else. It’s Lambert’s idea and when Lambert’s got an idea you don’t mess around with him. He’ll help with the welding. On a good day he’ll help with welding, any time.
All afternoon long they work. They find enough arms among the scrap in Lambert’s den for struts, cutting them to length with a little metal saw. On one end they make a downward angle, with an upward angle at the other, to make the welding easier.
Then they go outside. Pop with a pair of welding goggles and Lambert with his big welding helmet and the welding box. They put the little struts down in a heap next to the gate.
There’s a storm building, a thundercloud in one corner of the sky with a white head that looks like it’s boiling over in big white clouds of steam.
‘Watch us beat that cloud,’ Lambert says, pointing up with his thumb. Then he sits down on his crate, with his back to the cloud.
‘Right, let’s go,’ he says, and Pop hands him the first strut, for underneath. They shift it around until it fits.
Each time Pop bends down to pick up another strut from the little heap, he can feel the big cloud above him. Like when someone stands next to you and you can’t see him but you can feel his size and his warmth.
That cloud’s tanking up, Pop thinks. He smiles.
He looks at Lambert’s gloved hands. Sparks shoot in an arc around the gate. Everything in front of him looks dark blue, with bright points of light and glowing white smoke. It feels like being underwater, like the Blue Grotto of Capri they once saw on television.
Without taking off the welding goggles, Pop turns around and looks at the cloud behind his back. Short, white lines flash from the cloud’s belly.
It’s welding, he thinks. He smiles.
Mol walks out the front door. The tips of her housecoat flap in the wind like fins. She comes and stands next to them, nodding her head slightly. The plate’s already fixed to the lower arms.
Would they like some Coke? she asks.
That’ll be nice. Pop smiles at Mol from behind his goggles.
The goggles make him feel stronger. When he’s wearing them, he feels he can smile more broadly. He can see Mol looking at him. She knows something’s going on. Pop can see the sparks reflecting in her eyes. He wants to say something more, but he doesn’t know what.
She goes inside and comes back with three glasses and a litre of Coke on the half-tray.
Lambert drops his helmet and Pop shifts the goggles back on to his head. Everything’s clear again. They take big sips of Coke.
‘The rain’s coming,’ Mol says, fastening her middle button. It’s the only one left. She takes the glasses back inside.
‘We’ll be finished before the rain comes,’ says Lambert, lifting the helmet to his face again.
Everything’s working out, Pop thinks. Today everything’s working out just fine. The welding head isn’t clogging, the box hasn’t blown, they’ve got a plan and the plan’s working. Lambert’s okay and Mol’s recovered a bit from yesterday. And any minute now Treppie will come home too.
Then they’ll take the dogs to the open ground behind the Spar in Thornton.
And then he, Pop, is going to treat them. Yes, that’s what he’ll do. He still doesn’t know how. But he’ll know when the time comes.
‘Hey!’ says Treppie, suddenly right here next to him. ‘What’s that spider you’re welding there?’
‘Good afternoon!’ says Pop. ‘It’s Lambert’s idea. Bladdy good idea, if you ask me.’