He bought three bags of firewood, one and a half for practising and one and a half for the real thing.
Then he wanted old newspapers to put under the wood, but Treppie said, uh-uh, he wasn’t finished reading them yet and Lambert should’ve thought about this when he burnt all his old Watchtowers. The next thing, Lambert tells her she must go fetch those stupid Christmas cards from Seeff and Johan Bekker and Nico Niemand and De Huizemark and Aribal whatshisname so he can use them to make his fire. She said no way, Christmas wasn’t over yet and his Christmas fire would die for sure if he went and sent the season’s greetings up in flames. Then he said season’s foot, they didn’t mean it, it was just estate agents’ sales gimmicks. Gimmick himself, she said. What about the NP’s little Christmas card, did he want to burn that one too? No, he said, she must leave that one. The NPs had been in their house so many times they were almost family by now, and in any case the NP was safer than houses.
Then of course Treppie couldn’t keep his mouth shut again. He told Lambert if he went into the election believing those two snotnoses from the NP were any better than estate agents looking for a commission, then he’d learnt nothing in all his forty years.
Treppie said Lambert must ask himself this: if the DP paid its workers one rand for every black vote they could get, and the ANC was willing to pay as much as fifteen thousand rand for just one bankrupt white cop with a drinking problem who’d seen the light, then how much more wouldn’t the NP pay for all the Ampies of the nineties who still lived in Triomf? Hadn’t he noticed the smart car that nosepicking Groenewald drove around in, and did he perhaps think the NP got money like that from selling doughnuts at church bazaars? He could assure Lambert now, without a doubt: money like that came from one place and one place only — the taxpayer’s pocket. It was a fucken shame.
Treppie said he was even tempted to go and join the Inkathas — that was at least a kaffir party whose doors were wide open to white people. At least then you knew you were dealing with a kaffir who was sick to death of being used by the NP, someone who kept to his own path, even if he did still dress in skins sometimes. Served them right, Treppie said, he wished old Mangope and Oupa Whatshisname and that cocky little Bantu from the Transkei and all the others who sold out would also bite the NP’s hand. Its backside too. Would the NP never learn?
Treppie was so worked up he started getting the shakes, and Lambert wanted to knock him sideways with a piece of firewood. On the very eve of the holy Christmas. But she told them that unless they calmed down she wouldn’t ‘marinade’ their T-bones, not a damn. The closer Lambert gets to his birthday, the fancier his words get. She said if they didn’t stop, she and Pop would go across the road and ask the police to take Lambert in a straitjacket to the nuthouse. Treppie too, ’cause she didn’t want to sit through another Christmas with people who were full of the horries, never mind the election. That was if they ever made it to the election. Pop said he agreed. He begged them, didn’t they want to try getting through just one Christmas without another big hullabaloo. Maybe this would be his last.
That shut them up nicely. It was the first time they’d heard Pop say anything like that.
So, she almost didn’t stick around for Lambert’s fire practice.
But it would’ve been a great pity to miss the giving of presents. And that business with the presents was a jolly affair, from start to finish.
They worked out that if they bought in groups of three for the fourth one, they’d save money and they could give each person a nice present. And they could also make sure everyone’s present was worth the same money. In other years, someone always cheated, and someone else always felt done down, and that’s where the Christmas trouble always started. The new plan was Pop’s idea. Treppie said it sounded to him like a real New South Africa idea.
It worked like this: she and Pop and Treppie had to give Lambert something, and she and Lambert and Pop would give Treppie something, and then Lambert and Pop and Treppie had to give her something. Then she and Lambert and Treppie could buy something for Pop. And all of them gave Toby a packet of soup bones. Ag shame, why couldn’t Gerty also be here this Christmas?
A proper negotiated settlement is what Treppie called it. That’s now what he called transparency. And she said yes, transparent, that’s the way she’s always known Pop to be.
On the Thursday before Christmas they all went to Shoprite. They reckoned Friday would be too busy, but it was busy on Thursday too — so busy you could hardly swing a cat in there, never mind a trolley. So they took baskets instead.
The one whose present was being bought had to stand around at the magazine rack at the entrance with his back to the shelves, and the other three were given fifteen minutes to find something. Those three paid for it at the farthest till and took it back to the car. After that they could come back for the next round.
They worked out beforehand where each one’s plastic bag would be kept to avoid a mix-up, ’cause all the bags looked the same. Pop’s bag had to go in the bonnet, Lambert’s in the dicky, hers behind Pop’s seat and Treppie’s in the front, at her feet.
Lambert was the youngest, so he had to wait first. She and Pop and Treppie bought him a new pair of shorts and a packet of Gillette blades for his razor. That’s when she saw the passion meter. Treppie said it was rubbish, Made in Taiwan, but she said, no, this was really just the thing for Lambert, and in the end they all agreed. For Treppie, she and Pop and Lambert bought a short-sleeve shirt, a golf cap with Michael Jackson written on it and a packet of peppermint humbugs.
Lambert said the humbugs were for the smell, ’cause nowadays Treppie’s Klipdrift breath was so bad it was enough to get the lawn-mower started.
For Pop, she and Treppie and Lambert bought a pack of four hankies. White ones with curly blue Ps in the corners. They also bought him two pairs of socks and a new set of braces. His old ones were so stretched they couldn’t hold anything up any more, neither his pants nor his bum, although his bum’s been shrinking to nothing lately. And a big tin of Ovaltine, just for him, so he can build up his strength. For strength you need more than braces.
As for her, she knew there was at least one thing she’d find in her bag from Pop and Lambert and Treppie. And she was right, too. It made her happy to see Pop could still make his influence felt.
It was a new housecoat. The same kind Pop always gave her for Christmas. But this time it was a yellow one, golden yellow, her favourite colour. With two packets of cigarettes in one pocket and a surprise in the other — a new cat for the sideboard, to replace the one with no head, which has been like that for more than three years now.