Janita Lawrence - The Memory of Water

Or I could be carrying her to the car when I walk around a corner and straight into a drunk resident trying to get his key in the door. He’d look at the body and know she’s dead. He would recognise her pale face as the neighbour he’s always trying to screw. He’d smile and pretend that he can’t see shit because he’s so drunk, perhaps make a sleazy joke, but as soon as he steps into his apartment he’ll slam the door closed, triple lock it, and call the cops.

So I would have to kill him too, the drunken lamb. Punch him in the face, as he’s scrambling to get that stubborn key in the door, and then slit his throat. Take them both hurtling off the bridge. And then of course the multitudinous things that can go wrong in the car underwater are just too much to go into, so let’s not even begin. But when they find his throat slit they’ll know it’s murder, so the whole plan has to change anyway. The car will have to crash and explode to destroy the evidence.

Or I could dump him somewhere altogether different and make it look like he was just a drunk stumbling into trouble. I’d take his wallet and watch and leave his credit card for a travelling bum to find.

Or I could drag him into his apartment as soon as I’ve knocked him out and make it look like Eve killed him in self-defence. Put her fingerprints on a glass of wine. Rough her up a bit, tear her panties. Unfortunately corpses don’t bruise. Still, a bit hard to swallow.

So many scenarios to choose from, my writing hand is itching. Without even touching my Moleskine I dive straight onto my laptop. The phone rings a few times in the background but I block it out. I’m writing so fast that I can hear the sound of my fingers hitting the keys in a strange kind of disembodied way, as if my thoughts are just being deposited right onto the screen in front of me. Divine Dictation. I write for hours and hours without even realising it. The sun is setting and the last thing I had to eat was a rusk with this morning’s first flat white. I’m excited down to my lower intestines. My lungs are filling with air, my blood is rushing.

Christ, I love this feeling.

I feel like I could go all night but I don’t want my prose to tire. I force myself to shut down the machine and I order in chicken tikka for dinner. I’m not hungry but I want to feed my body so that this energy keeps coming.

When I turn in for the night I know that I won’t be able to sleep. I try to read Zadie Smith’s White Teeth but, much as I appreciate her writing, I can’t concentrate on the story. In the first chapter corduroyed Archie Jones is in the process of gassing himself in his Cavalier Musketeer Estate, with his medals in one hand and his marriage certificate in the other, ‘for he had decided to take his mistakes with him’. At the mere hint of death I’m losing focus all over the place. My mind bunnyhops. Eventually I give up sleep and sassy Ms. Smith, and start scribbling the ideas as they come to me. I write deep into the night, promising myself just one more hour every time the long hand meets twelve, eventually falling asleep when the hadedas start making a ruckus in the orange glow outside.

Bless you Jesus!

Something wakes me.

My eyes feel as though they have sand in them, reminding me that I haven’t had enough sleep. I look down and see that I have slept clutching my pen to my heart. My notebook is at my bent knee. I feel oddly at peace with the world. I think I’m even smiling a little.

The doorbell rings. That’s what must have woken me. I swear under my breath at whichever hawker is getting me out of bed at this hour but it fails to dampen my mood. I get ready to yell and shake my fist.

I look through the peephole and see a uniform. I rub my eyes.

Blue. SAPS blue. Then I see another. Their squad car is parked politely in my visitor’s bay.

I feel like I’ve been punched in the face.

Has something happened? Has my car been stolen? The neighbour been burgled? Has my father had a heart attack?

Have they caught me buying a fake driver’s license?

Did they catch me buying drugs? Those sneaky anti-crime cameras in the dodgy parts of the city can pick up number plates. It doesn’t help that mine is personalised. It reads ‘MERCENARY’ in honour of my first novel, when now, in retrospect, I think it should read JACKASS.

I jab the speaker button.

“Hello?” I say with all the calm I can.

“Open up please sir, this is the police.”

“The police ?”

So I wasn’t imagining it.

“Yes, sir, this is the police.”

Oh my God, I know something is wrong. Maybe if I don’t let them in they will go away.

“Well, what do you want?”

They speak amongst themselves. I hear eish -ing and shushing, ambush sounds, as if they’re discussing how to break down the security gate so that they can slap cuffs on me and drag me to the car.

“We have some questions, Mr Harris,” says one.

“Just open the gate, sir,” says the other.

“Please,” adds the first one.

Oh God. Good cop, bad cop. I’m about to let them in when I remember the giant mind map on the kitchen table. I run through, scrunch it up and look for somewhere to hide it. I feel panic rising and try to keep a level head. I end up dumping it in the laundry hamper in the bathroom and cover it with a towel. Out of breath, I press the buzzer to open the gate and with shaking hands I unlock and open my front door. They both stop in their tracks when they lay eyes on me. I look down and see that I’m only wearing a pair of jocks. In my fright I hadn’t thought of what I had on.

“Come inside,” I say. “Let me just throw on some pants.”

Pants? Why did I say pants?

The Good Cop smiles. Toujours la politesse. The taller one avoids eye contact. I throw open my cupboard and reach for the first things I see: torn jeans and grubby t-shirt. I lead them to the kitchen. They decline cappuccinos. They probably hate people who drink cappuccinos. They probably despise people who sit at arty cafes and smoke Vogues while talking about literature and sipping frothy coffee drinks. They probably drink neat Ricoffy, black and scalding, or burnt, tepid filter coffee, while they find missing persons and hunt down dangerous criminals and make the world a better place.

They also decline fresh squeezed juice from my Juicerator and Francina’s favourite pecan nut rusks.

The taller one is still not meeting my gaze. I look down again and see that I’m wearing an old varsity shirt that says ‘Half Man, Half Horse’.

I’m sure they can tell I’m nervous. I’m fluttering around the kitchen like Albert Goldman in Birdcage . I plug in the cappuccino machine anyway and flick the switch. I try to calm down.

Like dogs, I’m sure they can smell fear.

“Would you like to sit down?” I ask, sure that they’ll shake their heads. They don’t have time to lounge around my kitchen. They’ve got serious cop business to attend to.

They nod and pull up a chair. I gulp and sit down with them. I read the names off their badges. Madinga and Sello. Shifty-eyed Sello. It occurs to me that I didn’t ask for any kind of identification. I don’t want to piss them off and it’s probably too late anyway, seeing as they’re sitting in my kitchen with revolvers on their hips.

“Do you mind if I… can I ask you for… some ID?” I ask, too bright by far.

They look at each other as if I’ve told them an old joke. Each suppressing a sigh, they reach for their cards and flash them at me, too fast for me to register anything but badly-lit photos and the same names glinting on their golden badges. The cards are back in the shadows of their pockets before I have time to blink. Seem all right. But what the fuck do I know? They may have ordered them from the same place I bought my fake driving license. I wouldn’t know the difference. It’s not pretty to be paranoid, but paranoid people live longer, I’ve read that somewhere. And now I have the distinct feeling that something bad has happened.