‘Grrr!’ says Gerty.
‘That’s it, tell him,’ Mol says to Gerty. ‘Let him have it, old girl.’
‘Tell him his backside, yes, tell him,’ Pop says to Toby. ‘Treppie’s backside. Him and his sulphur breath. All he needs is a pair of horns!’
Pop revs the Volksie hard through first and second, looking back in the mirror as he takes the turn at the bottom of Martha Street, just past the oak tree. Mol turns round.
There stands Treppie in the middle of the road, with his hands on his hips, glaring at them. Lambert too. He’s standing at the front gate, also with his hands on his hips, for all the world to see how dirty he is.
Pop sticks his arm out of the window and slams the roof — ‘kaboof!’ — just for fun.
Mol smiles. Pop’s in a jolly mood today.
‘Where you think that Ding-Dong’s gone?’ she asks.
‘We look till we find it!’ says Pop.
They drive up and down Triomf’s streets, looking for the Ding-Dong. Up Gerty, down Bertha, up Meyer, down Gold, up Millar, down Smithsen, right to the end of Triomf, past the PPC church.
‘Maybe it was that priest who got all mixed up with the kaffirs here,’ Mol says.
‘Maybe it was what about him, Mol?’
‘Maybe it was him who planted the oak tree at the bottom of our street.’
‘No, Molletjie, you’ve got your sums all wrong, old girl. That priest must be about the same age as me, but that tree … that tree’s as old as Adam.’
‘Or Jan van Riebeeck?’
‘Ja, Jan van Riebeeck!’ Pop takes her hand and smiles. He turns back into Thornton.
‘Sorry, old girl, it looks like our luck’s out. That Ding-Dong’s gone with the wind.’
‘No ice cream for you today,’ Mol says to Gerty.
She always eats her soft-serve three-quarters of the way down and then lets Gerty lick-lick with her little pink tongue until it’s completely flat. Then she gives her the cone, too. But Toby also wants some, so Pop has to give Toby his cone. Pop likes the cone, so all Toby gets is the little piece at the bottom without any ice cream.
Lambert and Treppie eat theirs all the way to the end. Stingy bastards. No heart for a dog.
Now there’s no soft-serve for anyone today.
They stop at Ponta do Sol. A blackboard outside says DISCOUNT ON VIDEOS FOR POLICEMEN. It’s the kind of café that’s got just about everything.
‘Coke, Paul Revere, Wilsons,’ Mol says, as they stand at the counter where it reeks of fish and chips.
‘We still got bread?’ Pop asks. Suddenly he feels hungry.
‘Better get some,’ she says. ‘Polony too.’
‘And you, Molletjie,’ Pop says to her, ‘you want anything?’
She can see Pop’s feeling sorry for her ’cause she missed out on the Ding-Dong.
‘Ag, don’t worry,’ she says.
‘You sure?’ Pop asks.
‘Mmm.’ She wants out. There’s a woman looking at them as if the cat dragged them in. Must be a policeman’s wife. Her arms are full of videos.
Pop thinks she can’t see him, but she sees — he’s buying her a Snickers, after all. It’s a new kind. He knows she likes trying out new kinds.
When they get back into the car, she asks, ‘Did you get two packets of Wilsons?’
‘Oh shucks!’ Pop says. ‘Just as well you reminded me.’
‘You’d better,’ she says.
She eats the Snickers while Pop buys the Wilsons. Good old Pop. Gerty gets little bites from her Snickers. Toby also gets a piece.
‘So, how was your drive, then?’ Treppie asks as soon as they walk back into the house.
He’s sitting on his crate in the lounge with an old Star in his hands. Every other Monday, when those two across the road put out their old papers for recycling, he goes and takes them. Treppie says they think they’re big news there across the road. Those two girlies act like larnies, he says, like they’re making a big statement or something, putting out their newspapers for the green lorry. All it shows is how out of touch they are with Triomf. ’Cause in Triomf everything gets recycled, from kitchen cupboards to exhaust pipes, for ages already. And nobody makes a show out of it. He’s one to talk, this Treppie. He makes a show out of everything, recycled or not. Mind you, Lambert always phones from across the road, and he also says those two are up to something. He says it’s just books wherever you look in that house, and they play funny music with women who bleat like goats. One of their cars is also a Volkswagen. Lambert says it’s in even worse condition than their own two.
Treppie holds out his hand for the Wilsons.
‘Ka-thwack!’ go the packets as Mol slaps them into his open hand.
Treppie snaps his hand shut very quickly, almost catching her fingers in his hard, bony grip.
‘Watch it, man!’ she says, pulling her hand away.
Treppie says it’s not fresh news he’s after in the papers. The same things just keep happening over and over again, he says. You must be able to spot the ‘similarities’.
Well, Treppie sees more ‘similarities’ than she does. Mind you, he sees more of everything.
And he also remembers everything. If he doesn’t remember something, he makes it up. Just like that.
Pop says Treppie’s got a ‘photographic memory’. Ever since he was a boy. But she has her doubts. He remembers what he wants to, and for the rest he makes up things to torment them with. It’s just Lambert who’s impressed with Treppie’s nonsense. But Lambert’s not right in his top storey.
‘Don’t you even say thank you, hey, Treppie?’ she asks.
‘Just check this out,’ he says, pretending not to hear. ‘“Pit bull terriers in Triomf. Policeman’s cruel game. Illegal backyard betting. Shocked vets keep sewing up mangled dogs”,’ he reads. ‘So, that’s what we keep hearing at night, Mol! It’s got nothing to do with Sophiatown’s ghosts. It’s blood and money — and those two together make a terrible racket. Trapped between walls, with bared teeth and ghost eyes, blood spewing from their veins.’
Treppie opens his one hand and closes it, open, close, open, close, to show how the blood spews out of the dogs’ veins.
‘It’s worse than ghosts,’ he says. ‘Much worse. If I understand correctly, you could say the whole of Jo’burg is one big pit bull terrier fight.’
Treppie closes his paper and folds it up, as if what he’s just read is no surprise, ’cause he knew it all along.
He opens one of his Wilsons packets and puts a big white peppermint into his mouth. His shoulder twitches.
‘So then,’ he says. ‘I said, how was your drive? Don’t you even answer a person?’
He makes a loud sucking noise with his tongue on the peppermint.
Pop sits down quietly in his chair and lights up. Mol too. That’s the best. Sit nice and quietly.
‘Hey, Toby, so how was your drive, hey? See lots of other dogs?’ Treppie asks.
‘And you, Gerty old girl, how does Triomf look to you today, hmmm?’
Suddenly Treppie slips off his crate and slides down on to his heels. He pretends he’s walking on his back paws, like a trained poodle. Toby and Gerty run around him, jumping up and down.
Then he goes down on his knees, stretching his arms out in front of him with his knuckles on the floor. And then he lifts his nose up into the air, letting out a long dog-wail.
‘Ag Christ no, Treppie,’ Mol says. ‘Don’t start that nonsense now. Just now we get into trouble with next door again.’
But it’s too late.
Treppie’s crying like the dogs.
Toby and Gerty’s barking gets higher and thinner, until their voices break and they too give in to the crying. They sit next to Treppie with their front legs stretched out in front of them, their snouts lifted up into the air, just like him. The way they cry, all three of them, you’d swear they were in a little choir together.