Triomf Page 7

  And that was now a palaver for you. It wasn’t just a picnic in Pretoria, it had to be business, too. That was also Pop’s idea. At least to start with. She’s sure Pop’s got a much better eye for business than Treppie. He just lacks the will. But those were the days when Pop was still young. Lambert was just seven. And Pop said Lambert could stay out of school for two days to help them get ready. At school they’d just be waving a lot of flags around anyway. In the end all hell broke loose ’cause Lambert didn’t get his Republic Day medal at school that day. Gold medals with Dr Verwoerd’s face on. Pop had to go ask Lambert’s teacher afterwards to please order an extra one. Anyway, Pop’s plan was to sell roses on Republic Day. Not reds. No, they went to the market the day before and bought orange roses. Four gross. Forty bunches. Las Vegas Supreme, that was their name. She’ll never forget that. A fancy orange rose with no scent at all. But the colour made up for it. It was bright, like an orange sucker. They bought ten bunches of Baby’s Breath, and ten bushes of display fern, a whole spool of blue ribbon and a spool of white. So they could make oranje-blanje-blou corsages. They bought small golden pins and a roll of green florist’s tape. And rolls of cotton wool to moisten and then pack the flowers in so they’d stay fresh. In flat peach trays.

  All Pop’s idea, and a bladdy good one too. They worked right through the night. After a few hours she was squinting from all the work. She’d take an orange rose, cut the stem, add a spray of Baby’s Breath, a twig of fern and a piece of green tape to keep it all together. Then a piece of white ribbon and a piece of blue ribbon, right around, push the pin through and it was done. Put to one side. They sat outside in the backyard in a circle, on crates, under a light on an extension that Treppie hooked on to the gutter.

  ‘Check the Benades’ assembly line!’ he said.

  ‘We’re assembling the new republic,’ Pop said. He was very excited about his idea.

  ‘We’re assembling it and it’s going to pay! What will we charge apiece?’ That was Treppie, of course. Then he held up one of the completed corsages, stood up and pinned it to his shirt, pushing out his chest and prancing around like a child of the devil.

  ‘We mustn’t charge too much,’ Pop said. ‘It’s for a cause, remember.’

  At that point, Treppie told her it was time to fetch the brandy and Coke, with glasses and ice, ’cause now they needed to talk about this ‘cause’. Every cause had its price, he said.

  Even today, if they talk about money, he wants to drink.

  ‘Now, let’s see. How much did you spend, you two? Spending’s what you’re both so good at, isn’t it?’ Treppie was looking for trouble. She could see it coming.

  ‘Twenty-five rand,’ Pop said, but it was actually thirty-five rand with all the extras. They were still thinking in pounds and pennies and shillings those days, anyhow.

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Treppie, ‘and what per cent profit would you say a person should make out of a new-born republic?’

  ‘Well, um, surely not more than about five per cent,’ said Pop. ‘Like I said, it’s for a cause.’

  ‘Are you crazy! I’d say one hundred or two hundred per cent! Or double that. Four hundred per cent. I’ll tell you what,’ said Treppie, in that high, devil’s voice of his, ‘we’ll lie to those buggers. Let’s tell them it’s for a hospital. The HF Verwoerd Hospital. We’ll take clean paper and write neatly on top: Republic Flower Fund. The HF Verwoerd, er, Institute, that’s grander, for the Mentally Retarded.’ Then Treppie smoothed down his voice and talked like the man who reads the news on the radio: ‘With a column for your signature, sir, and a column for your donation, madam. We’ll tell them the price is forty-four cents. Then you’ll see how we milk their sympathies. They’ll search their pockets for change and hand over the first half-crown they can find. But who, on a day like that, will sign next to a donation of only six cents? So they’ll fumble for more change and pull out a shilling or two, or three. Or more, much more! On a day like that people will want to show off. They’ll dig deep into their back pockets. On a day like that they’ll want to sign for a cause, in hard cash!’

  She and Pop just sat there, stunned. Treppie’s eyes were glittering. It was just too bladdy far-fetched for words. They just sat there with their mouths hanging open.

  ‘And the cherry on the cake,’ Treppie said, putting on that high little voice of his, ‘the cherry on the cake is our mascot.’ Then he turned his head slowly and looked at Lambert. Like the devil himself, he looked Lambert up and down. Christ, she thought, I can see trouble coming.

  ‘Lambert,’ said Treppie, ‘come here to your, er, uncle.’ Lambert went over to him and Treppie began telling him what to do. ‘Lambert, let your mouth hang open,’ he said. ‘No, not like that, pull your bottom lip this way. Yes, like that. Now, turn your eyes to the inside, towards each other, and now up, yes, like that, but not too much, just about half-mast. That’s it. Now, stare out in front of you, about two yards, at knee-height. That’s it, yes. That’s perfect, just perfect. And now watch carefully what your uncle Treppie’s going to do.’

  Then Treppie walked back a few steps into the dark, out of the light, and he waited for a while, and they also waited, her and Pop, and Lambert too, with his open mouth and his crooked eyes, like he’d been hypnotised or something, and then Treppie came out from the dark. Hell, he looked just like that Gadarene madman. He waggled into the light, with one leg dragging in the dust behind him, and one arm flopping from a twitching shoulder, slobbering from the mouth.

  And those eyes! That was the worst. She’ll never forget his eyes. Turned up so all you could see was the whites, his eyelids flickering like an old bulb about to blow.

  ‘Come on, Lambert, my boy,’ Treppie said with a thick tongue. ‘Come on, come let your uncle show you how we’re going to win over those mothers of the nation tomorrow. Every now and again you must smile through the spit, and then shake your head a little, like this. Don’t worry, it’s crooked enough as it is.’

  And there they went, walking round in circles in the dust of the yard as Treppie showed Lambert how to act crazy. It was very queer, but they couldn’t help laughing. Pop too. When Treppie and Lambert came and stood in front of him, swaying on their legs, with drool running down their chins, and Treppie sang, ‘Ringing out from our blue heavens, from our deep seas breaking round’, Pop just couldn’t help laughing. Then Pop also made a funny face, rolling his eyes and acting crazy. After a while they were all pretending to be mad; even she kicked one leg out in front of her, slobbering with her tongue. Pop pushed his bum out and pulled his body into a hump, just like a hen. They had a lot of fun that night, there in that bare backyard.

  ‘Ne’er would your children, who are free, have to ask,’ Treppie shouted, spraying spit all over the place.

  ‘Granpa rode a big fat porker in the pouring rain,’ said Pop.

  ‘The rain in Spain,’ said Lambert, ‘so he fell off, bang! and then he climbed on to its back again.’

  And she climbed on top of the washing machine and sang: ‘Whiter than snow, yes whiter than snow, o wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.’

  Whenever she gets to this part of the story, they’re all on the floor, laughing. Then she can’t carry on. Which is maybe for the best, ’cause it began to get a bit rough that night, a bit too rough. Lambert says he doesn’t know, he says it must be the drink Treppie threw down his throat, but he can’t remember a thing about that night, or the next day.

  For everyone’s sake, she just tells the story of the next day, the day they went to Pretoria. In the little Austin, with all the corsages, and how they made so much money, she says. For everyone’s sake, she tells the story, but especially for Lambert. She tells how they made bags of money at the Voortrekker monument. She can still see it before her eyes, she says; the people stood there with stiff eyes, listening to the speeches, and they pulled out paper money from their pockets to buy the little corsages.

  Almost six hundred rand. Five hundred and forty nine rands and twentyni
ne cents.

  When she gets to this part, Pop drops his head, and Treppie says ‘Fuck!’ as he walks out the front door. And Lambert says, the rain in Spain, sitting there in the lounge with his brandy. When she tries to go to the kitchen, he stops her: ‘Ma, tell us more, tell about the speeches, and how the people pulled ten-rand notes out of their pockets when they saw me.’ Then she tells him the story. She tells him what he wants to hear. Poor Lambert. That poor cockeyed child of hers. And then Pop lifts up his head and he helps her. He recites bits of Verwoerd’s speech for Lambert, just as if he’d been there himself.

  ‘And I say to you today, my people, the Commonwealth of Nations will bring us no gain. Not a single cent. I say to you here today, we’re better off on our own. No one has any business meddling in our affairs. No one needs to stick their noses into our affairs. We’ll work out our own salvation here on the southern tip of Africa, by the light we have, and with the help of the Almighty.’

  Then Treppie comes in with a fat grin on his face. Now that sounds just right, he says. That sounds like good business. No one must come here and mess with them. Not with the volk and not with their brothers in the volk either.

  And then Pop always looks Treppie in the eye, and he says, ‘Ja, now there was a first-class statesman for you.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Treppie says next, ‘oh yes, old brother.’ Treppie’s voice drips with honey when he says ‘old brother’, and then he laughs like the devil himself.

  And Lambert says, ‘Oh yes,’ shaking his head and swilling the brandy round and round in his glass.

  And then they sit there and they say nothing, and she stands in the doorway and looks at them there where they sit.

  4

  POLISHING THE BRASS

  It’s Wednesday morning and Lambert’s been shouting and screaming ever since sunrise. He wants everything fixed, now, on the double. How can they let the house look like a pigsty when the NPs are coming, he shouts at them from the den at the back. What will the NPs think? What will they think of the curtain that’s still hanging over the pelmet? And the postbox that Treppie went and fetched off the street and then just chucked back on to the lawn, still full of dents, with its silver paint coming off.

  After he blacked out, he was flat on his back for a long time. On his mattress. That much he figured out. The whole of Sunday, and all of Monday too, ’cause it was Tuesday morning before he could sit up straight again. Then he wanted Coke. Clean Coke. Coke always brings him round after a fit. They say everything goes better with Coke, and that’s what he says, too.

  He told his mother to buy him a See and a Scope at the café in Thornton. They sell Sees there. The shop at the bottom of Toby Street just sells kaffir rubbish. And then on Tuesday night he ate half a loaf of white bread with Sunshine D, golden syrup and polony. Treppie came into the den and said he shouldn’t eat so much white bread, ’cause he was still going to have to fit into his leathers before his birthday, wink-wink.

  He knows Treppie’s taught him a lot, and he owes him, but he can’t fucken take it when Treppie winks at him like that.

  He got up earlier this morning to see if his mother was hanging up the curtain by those hooks that go into the rings on the railing, but then his ears started zinging, so he came and lay down on his bed again. When he’s had a fit, Coke helps for his stomach, but it doesn’t stop the zinging in his ears.

  Here comes Treppie now, walking down the passage. He knows it’s Treppie ’cause Treppie doesn’t drag his feet like his mother, and his one foot doesn’t sound louder than the other, like Pop’s. Treppie walks like a cat. You could even say Treppie creeps up on you. Don’t creep up on me like that, he always says, ’cause it feels like Treppie’s peeping into his head when he stands so close to him, peeping at everything he’s fucken thinking, long before he even realises Treppie’s there.

  ‘What you reading there, old boy?’ Treppie asks. He’s leaning against the inside door of the den. He says ‘old boy’ with a twist in his voice, like what he really means is ‘old dickface’.

  Treppie says he, Lambert, has the longest, thickest dick he’s seen in his entire life. He doesn’t see how Treppie can know that, ’cause he’s never been naked in front of him. But when he tells Treppie this, Treppie says he’s so fucken far gone he doesn’t even know when he’s starkers and when he’s wearing clothes. Treppie talks a lot of crap. If Treppie knows how big his dick is, it must be ’cause his pants fall down when he fits. His mother pushes washing pegs between his teeth to stop him from biting off his tongue. Sometimes when he wakes up his pants are gone. Then he sees them hanging up on the line outside. His mother says he pisses in his pants when he fits. How’s he fucken supposed to help it? She can be glad he doesn’t shit in his pants, too.

  ‘I said, what you reading there, old boy?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He doesn’t want to talk to Treppie. He can feel he’s still not a hundred per cent, and when he’s not a hundred per cent he can’t handle trouble. If he goes off the rails when he’s not a hundred per cent, then he really fucks out. Then he fucks out in a big way.

  ‘Such bad manners! A person can’t even ask what you’re reading.’ Treppie creeps up on him and snatches the pamphlet from his hands. ‘So, let’s have a look.’ Treppie knows exactly what it is he’s reading, but now he wants to put on a whole fucken show again.

  ‘Jesus, this fancy print is so skew, not even a dog can read it. What? “The constitutional protection of minorities. Point one: language and culture”. Hell, Lambert, but this is high falutin’ stuff you’re reading here, old boy. What “minorities” do they mean now?’

  Treppie’s acting stupid. Lambert knows this game; it’s something Treppie does a lot, just to torment him. He knows he must just not say anything. If he does, then Treppie takes whatever he says and drop-kicks it up into the blue sky, to hell and back, and then he asks: Where was I now? Then he acts like he’s also looking for the answer. There’s just no end to him. His mother’s right. Treppie’s a fucken devil, but not a straight one; he’s a devil with a twist, a twisted devil with a twitch in the shoulder. It’s a nervous tick, as he himself says.

  ‘Is that postbox fixed yet?’ he asks Treppie. He knows he must try and get out of this thing now. He gets up on his elbow, but his ears are still zinging. When he closes his eyes, he sees green. His tongue still feels lame. Down in his back too. Lame.

  ‘Hey? I asked if you fixed the postbox yet.’

  ‘What for?’ says Treppie.

  ‘The NPs. They’re coming today.’ He knows what he just said must sound very dumb. Treppie always gives the NP hell when they come here. Why should he give a shit about the postbox?

  ‘So what?’ Treppie says.

  ‘Pop!’ he shouts. ‘Pop!’ Pop always helps him out with Treppie. But these days Pop’s help isn’t worth much. He’s tired. So he, Lambert, has to fend for himself. Here comes Pop now, down the passage. First the hard foot, then the soft foot. ‘Click-clack, click-clack’ go the blocks as he walks.

  ‘Pop, take Treppie with you to get the welder and the tools, and go fix up the postbox. That metal base is still okay.’

  Pop doesn’t say anything. He traipses around the room, looking for the welder.

  ‘Hell, brother, you only let him order you around, hey!’ says Treppie, twisting the words hard when he says ‘brother’.

  ‘Come now, Treppie,’ says Pop. ‘Cut it out, man.’ He says it softly. He can’t talk hard any more. He’s holding Treppie by the sleeve, but Treppie jerks his arm loose.

  ‘Listen to me, brother, don’t come in here and push me around. I’m talking to old Lambert here. We’re talking about “minorities” – ja, a minor past, a minor present and a very minor future. We’re talking fucken deep stuff here, man. First the NP wastes time like it’s for Africa, and now they’re trying to make it a “minor” thing. Also for Africa. Beats me. Too fucken deep for me. But if you’re as deep in the shit as old Lambert here,’ says Treppie, kicking Lambert’s scrap against the doo
r, ‘then a person has to think very deep …’

  ‘Treppie,’ Pop says, ‘give it a break now, man.’

  ‘Old Lambert, here,’ Treppie says, like he’s explaining something completely new to Pop, ‘old Lambert’s someone who always does his homework, you see. He’s scared he’ll have nothing to say the next time he sees that piece with the bare shoulders, that cute one from the varsity, the Rôndse Ôfrikônse Univarsity. So now he’s swotting up these fancy pamphlets.’

  Treppie, he thinks, is just like a dungfly buzzing bzzt, bzzt, against a window. But with a real fly, at least you can open a window and chase the bugger out. You don’t even have to touch the blarry thing.

  ‘Pop, tell Treppie he must fuck off from here, or there’s going to be trouble.’ Pop lifts up his hand, but then he drops it again. He opens his mouth, but then he closes it again.

  ‘Ai,’ he says. ‘Ai, God help us.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Pop,’ Treppie says. ‘Everything’s okay. I’m just having a bit of fun with old Lambert. Come,’ he says, ‘be a sport. Come and join us.’

  He grabs Pop by the shirt and quickly pulls him in through the den’s door. But Pop’s foot catches and he stumbles. Treppie grabs him from behind, by his belt, and quickly pulls him up again.

  ‘Oh boy,’ Treppie says. ‘Not so steady any more, or what am I saying, hey, Pop?’

  When Treppie gets like this, it’s like he’s changing gear. All you hear are the revs, getting higher and higher by the second.

  Treppie pulls up two crates. They’re both full of empty one-litre Coke bottles. Then he turns the crates over with one hand, crashing the bottles on to the den’s cement floor. Lambert can’t see how many bottles are broken.

  ‘Those are my Coke bottles, Treppie. Ninety-one cents each,’ he says, but not too loud.

  He pushes himself up straight, sitting against the wall. He checks to see where his shoes are, in case he has to make a run for it over the broken glass.