What’s that big tearing noise above their heads? It’s a Jumbo, taking the whole fucken sky for itself.
‘Jaws,’ Treppie hiccups, ‘snap!’
They watch the Jumbo.
A strong wind pushes the clouds across the sky. The Jumbo sails with its nose against the current. As it flies, clouds slide off its sides and moonlight covers its body, making the whole jet shine except for its belly. The Jumbo pushes its nose slowly into the sky as it flies away from them, towards the moon. Its dark shadow passes, and then the noise follows, louder and louder, until they can hear nothing but a terrible blowing sound.
Lambert sees Treppie’s mouth open as he shouts something at the Jumbo, flying towards the moon. He shakes his fist at the sky.
‘What?’
‘Angel of Retribution!’ Treppie shouts into his ear. The Klipdrift is heavy on his breath. ‘Shadowing the bonny bride, shadowing the groom.’
‘It’s going to land at Jan Smuts. Let’s go sleep now.’
He pushes Treppie from behind, into the passage. Then he helps him on to his bed.
He walks back to his den and switches off the passage light. As he passes, he stops at his mother and Pop’s closed door, opening it slightly to listen. ‘Ghrrr-ghrrr,’ his mother snores. ‘Phewww-phewww,’ Pop snores. ‘Swish-swish’ goes Toby’s tail. Must be on the bed again. Ever since Gerty died they’ve been letting him sleep on the bed. So they’re okay.
So now, all in all, it wasn’t such a bad night. He must say, he feels quite good. He’s a patrolman with class. What did Treppie say again? The Knight of Triumph, who looks after his own people. ’Cause they can’t always do it for themselves. That’s for fucken sure.
16. THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND
FENCE 
Lord, have mercy, they’re screaming and shooting again behind those rolls of razor-wire. It’s been going on like this all night now — flashbacks of what happened during the year. The little man on TV says they’re first having the flashbacks, and then, only later, the Queen. It’s that time between Christmas and New Year again, when this is all you get to see on TV. Mol’s tried the other stations too. Just speeches and marches and dead people under blankets wherever you look.
Every time Treppie pokes his head out of his room and sees more bodies under blankets, he says he’ll bet his bottom dollar those are Operation Snowball’s blankets. Charity’s not what it used to be, he says.
Nothing to be done about it. She’ll just have to wait for the Queen of England. At least it’s something to look forward to.
The house is peaceful tonight. Pop’s sleeping next to her, in his chair, and Toby’s lying with his head on Pop’s shoe. Treppie’s reading newspapers in his room. Lambert’s in his den. He says he’s painting. When he’s not painting, he’s digging his hole: his storage cellar, he calls it. He says it’s still not deep enough. Every day he picks something from his list to work on. Then, when he’s finished, he comes and stands here in the middle of the lounge with his hands on his hips, and he says: three down, twenty-six to go, or, five down, thirty-two to go.
Treppie says they must get ready, ’cause they’re well into the countdown now. Not to be launched, he says, but to implode.
As far as she can see, Lambert adds things to the bottom of his list faster than he ticks them off at the top. So, this is no count-down, it’s a count-up. And she wouldn’t be able to say what that means as far as blowing up or conking in or imploding’s concerned. They’ll just have to wait and see.
To top it all, Treppie’s gone and talked a new fencing story into Lambert’s head. Mister Cochrane’s Security Fencing, with spikes. ‘Neat and nasty security spikes from Stiletto’s.’ She has to listen to it almost every day now.
She’s seen a lot of houses with those spikes, but they always put them on top of high walls. Their house hasn’t got a high wall. But Treppie says it’s not a problem. All they need to do is hammer a few spikes into the roof — around the overflow pipe, where the corrugated iron is coming loose. And then they can put Mister Cochrane’s electrified razor-wire on top of their own wire fence in front, and on top of the prefab wall, too. That will make them the neatest and nastiest of them all, Treppie says. Then they’ll be ready.
Ready for what? she asks. And he says, ready for any eventuality.
Treppie says Mister Cochrane is a man after his own heart. He’s an oke who takes a gap when he sees it. And he doesn’t just take the gap, he looks for it too, all over the world. If he doesn’t find it, Treppie says, then he wouldn’t be surprised if Mister Cochrane goes and makes his gap with the help of the state.
When she asks him what gap, Treppie says: Oh, it’s like something that still hasn’t been given its right name. Mister Cochrane trekked right through Africa following the gap, until he arrived here at the southern tip. Things only began to go well for him in Nyassaland, which is now Kenya. It was there that Mister Cochrane saw the Mau-Mau, and that was one of the gap’s first names. So he made his fencing to close up the gap.
Mau-Mau.
Treppie says there’s just one thing about this kind of gap: once you’ve closed it up with security fencing, it starts getting bigger and bigger again and you can never keep up. You think you’re closing it but actually you’re opening it. He says that’s what you call a paradox, but security is full of paradoxes like that.
All she needs to do is use her own two eyes, he says, and then she’ll see all of Jo’burg sparkling with Mister Cochrane’s security fencing. Around the golf courses, the Vroue-Landbou-Unie’s home for unmarried mothers in Brixton, around schools and factories and the JG Strydom Hospital, Shoprite’s loading zone at the back, Triomf’s NG church, the coolie-church in Bosmont, everywhere. It’s been put up once around the botanical gardens and three times around John Vorster Square. Even the Chinese in Commissioner Street have fenced in their yards, except now they can’t chase the rats out any more. So they add them to the sweet and sour, for bulk.
Bulk.
You can even see the fencing on the walls of the Rand Afrikaans University, as if that wall isn’t bad enough as it is. Seven million rands’ worth of wall, says Treppie. You’d swear RAU was a raptor or something, trying to break loose.
Raptor.
He says it won’t be long before they surround the whole of Jo’burg with that fence. But Mister Cochrane still won’t be finished, ’cause then he can make fences inbetween and more fences around and inbetween and around and inbetween until he’s gone right around the world.
Security fencing has become South Africa’s biggest single export product, Treppie says. Everyone wants it, all the way from the Sudan to the Kruger National Park and to Chile. Treppie says Mister Cochrane has been invited by the United Nations to go to Bosnia and Hertzego-whatsitsname to come make his fences, so the Moslems and Christians will stop wiping each other out over there. And during the Gulf War, just a few years ago, there was lots of interest in Iran and Iraq for Mister Cochrane’s fencing. Which doesn’t surprise him at all, says Treppie, ’cause South Africa sold cannons to Iraq for that war, and war of any kind always opens up gaps that have to be fenced in again. When those two countries were at war, the government exported security fencing to both of them. The more fighting, the more fencing. The more fencing, the more fighting. That was like killing two birds with one stone. Boom! Snap! says Treppie. Boom! Snap! Boom! Snap! Very profitable.