‘Ja,’ says Johnny, ‘he peeps at us every time we braai, for years and years now, the fucken rubbish.’
‘They broke our window, on purpose,’ says Lambert. He knows that doing things on purpose makes a difference.
‘That was my fucken vase, my vase that I got for my anniversary!’ screams Pink Bikini. ‘What were we supposed to do? He came over our wall and jumped on the hamburger stand. So I threw him with the vase!’
‘Self-defence!’ says Johnny.
‘They broke our pipe, on purpose,’ says Lambert, pointing to the roof so the policemen can see.
‘Fuck your pipe, man,’ says Johnny, ‘and fuck you too, with or without a pipe!’
‘My mom and them are old, and now the TV’s broken and there’s no overflow on the geyser any more,’ says Lambert.
‘Ag, man, your mother’s cunt!’ shouts Speedo. ‘Your mother’s hairy arse!’
Lambert sees people coming out of their houses all the way up and down Martha Street. Dogs are barking for blocks around. Couples coming home late from their Saturday night dates stop their cars to look. They switch off the car radios so they can listen.
He breaks loose. His mother and them must come now. Why should he take the shouting all on his own? They’re also in this. But they don’t want to come out. They just move a little closer to the wire fence.
‘Just check, old Lambert,’ shouts Treppie. ‘People think we’re famous. Check all the people, Lambert. The fucken Benades’ fucken late night show! Scenes from forthcoming attractions. Bladdy movie stars, that’s what we are!’
Fuck Treppie. He’s fucken drunk and now he’s shooting his mouth off too.
‘What about our sail, hey? What about our stand, hey? Hey?’ says Johnny Paunch, pushing Lambert around. The constables hold Johnny back.
‘Come, Johnny, it’s enough now,’ says Kiepie.
‘Yes, enough,’ says Big Flowers. ‘The police also have to sleep.’ She smiles at the constable. Who does she think she is?
‘It was a plain accident,’ says Lambert. ‘There was no intention.’
‘No intention’s backside, you hear me, it’s backside! You, you peep at us when we braai!’ It’s Blue Bikini shouting at him now. She’s wearing a man’s shirt over her bikini.
‘Hit him, hit him, Johnny. Knock the daylights out of him,’ shouts Little Flowers. She still hasn’t stopped walking around in circles in the street.
‘Tell Lambert he must come inside now,’ he hears his mother say. ‘Come, Pop, tell him to come inside now.’ His people move a little closer.
Pop’s mouth hangs open.
‘Button up your pants and go and tell him now,’ says Treppie.
Pop walks up to the gate. He holds on to the fence with one hand and buttons up his pants with the other. He nudges the postbox with his foot, pushing it out of his way. It lies on the grass, its little arms sticking out in all directions.
‘Peeep’ goes the front gate as Pop carefully pushes it open. Lambert sees Pop coming. Pop works his way through the people, through big shoulders in uniforms. He pushes his way through, so he can get to Lambert in the middle. Then he finds Lambert’s elbow.
‘Come now, my boy,’ he says. ‘Come inside now. Everything’s over. It’s okay now. Just come inside.’
Pop pulls him out, backwards, backwards, away from the mob of people standing there. Some of them follow him, trying to block his way.
‘Just you peep at us once more when we braai, you fucken rubbish!’ says Johnny, who keeps following them as Pop pulls him further away.
‘Next time we’ll break your fucken overflow right off for you,’ says Blue Jeans.
‘We’ll pull your wire right out next time! Out, once and for all, you hear me!’ Speedo shouts into his face.
‘So you can stop peeping at us when we braai,’ say the two Bikinis, together.
‘Hey, you lot,’ says Big Flowers, ‘leave the poor bastard now. Leave him. That’s enough now. Come inside.’
Two policemen get into their car and drive off. Two other pairs stand around for a while. They look as cool as cucumbers.
‘Just look at the house,’ says the one. Lambert sees how they look the house up and down, with their hands on their sides.
‘Looks like it’s falling to pieces,’ says the other one.
‘Just look at all the rubbish under that roof,’ says the first one.
‘Bad,’ says the white constable. ‘Bad to the bone.’
‘Ag, Jesus, shame,’ says the Coloured constable.
‘At least the lawn is nice and neat,’ says another Coloured constable.
The radios in the police cars crackle and make ‘peep-peep’ noises. The cars are full of voices. Pop has pulled Lambert almost all the way to the stoep, backwards, backwards, backwards. His mother holds the door open. Treppie walks round the house. He chucks the broken pieces of pipe and gutter on to a heap. ‘Sow the seed, oh sow the seed,’ he sings at the top of his voice. Then he goes inside.
The front door closes.
The stoep-light switches off.
Lambert’s mother pours him a drink. They all stand around looking at him. He’s sitting in Pop’s chair.
‘Your foot,’ says his mother.
His foot’s swollen blue and purple.
‘I kicked him slap-bang in the mouth,’ he says.
‘Black belt,’ says Treppie.
‘Your head,’ says his mother. The blood has dried in long strips down his forehead. Where’s the hole?
‘Let’s see,’ she says.
‘Don’t touch!’ he says, jerking his head away.
‘Tough,’ says Treppie. ‘Tough like Stallone.’
‘Bedtime,’ says Pop. ‘Come, let’s go to bed.’
They all leave. In the passage, his mother picks up the piece of plaster that fell off the wall. She looks at the wall.
‘Cracks,’ she says. ‘Just look at the cracks.’ She wipes her hand over the wall, once, as if she wants to wipe away the cracks.
He remains seated for a long time in Pop’s chair. He looks at the hole in the wall where the plaster fell off, at the cracks all around it. One by one he looks at the cracks, how they run up the wall, until he can’t see them any more, until they disappear into the high-gloss paint.
But he knows, under the paint they go on and on, invisible to the eye. Once it gets going, a crack in plaster is something that keeps running. Once it starts, you can never stop it.
7. RUNNING REPAIRS
It’s Monday morning. Treppie’s standing on the front lawn, checking out Saturday night’s damage.
Last night, Sunday night, he also came outside to look around. The only time he usually stands out here is when he gets home on the bus from the Chinese, ’cause Pop doesn’t always come and fetch him. Then, in the last red glow of the sunset, he screws up his eyes until he lines up the evening star with the top of the overflow pipe’s U-bend. He squints until he has the U-bend’s upright aligned with the foot of the aerial. Then it looks like a weird little tree or something.
It’s something he likes doing after the walk home from the bus stop in Thornton. It’s his own time, after work, before he goes back into the house again. It’s time that he uses to tune himself in, to organise the space in his head. He’s noticed that when he doesn’t first tune himself in, he’s off-centre for the rest of the night.
But last night wasn’t a work night and there was also nothing on the roof. Fuck-all he could use to get himself aligned with the evening star, and God knows, he needed it.
There goes my Christmas tree too, he said, speaking aloud to himself. But Mol had poked her head under the sun-filter curtains that he’d put up with nails, staring at him through the window. Then she came out and stood next to him, still holding the loose pelmet in her hands.