Marlene van Niekerk - Triomf

Lambert looks at the watch that Treppie got for him at the Chinese. It was to correct his sense of time, as Treppie put it, so his biological clock would stop running ahead of itself so dangerously.

A cheap piece of Chinese rubbish, but at least it shows the time and date. Five o’clock in the afternoon. Twenty-fifth April.

He’s sitting on a Dogmor tin, surveying his handiwork.

Actually, he’s looking at his hands.

They’re full of cuts and bruises. There’s still a plaster on the palm of one hand. It’s one of the spots that wouldn’t heal after the acid burnt him. Now the plaster’s black and frayed around the edges. He must remember to put on a new one before tonight.

He turns his hands so his nails face upwards. His fingers are trembling and his back feels lame from all the running around. And God, how his feet ache. But he’d rather not start looking at his feet now.

It’s Treppie who hurried him up so much. He thought he’d be getting his girl on the night of his birthday, which is the 26th. But then, yesterday, Treppie came with a new story, in front of his mother too, the bastard.

Actually, Treppie said, he was born just after midnight and it was ‘therefore’ already the 26th, and it was then that his birthday should begin, and ‘therefore’ his birthday present should be handed over to him on the night of the 25th. Handed over, he said, making curves in the air with his hands like a woman’s body. Handed over in good time, he said, so Lambert would be ready for the hour of reckoning.

His mother said, hmph, what reckoning was this now, his birth was more like an hour of tribulation, God alone knew.

No, Treppie said, she had to be positive now. For Lambert it would be an hour of triumph, not despair. And, he said, when you have a birthday, you rejoice the loudest, all the days of your life, the exact minute when someone held you upside down and smacked you till you said: Eh!

And he, Lambert, had to be ready, and everything else had to be ready too, on that exact moment just after twelve, as the 26th got going, so he could perform at his very best.

It was nothing less, said Treppie, winking that devil’s wink of his, than the bounden duty, nay, the heavenly command of a person who finally, on his fortieth birthday, gets to fuck someone who isn’t his mother. Or, mind you, someone who isn’t his father either, ’cause that possibility should also not be excluded — just look how the world was swarming with misfits who couldn’t let go of the apron strings, or for that matter, the braces of their parents.

At that point, he, Lambert, decided he’d had enough of Treppie’s rubbish, standing there in the kitchen door with that holier-than-thou look on his face. He took a king-size swing to smash in that foul mouth of his, but Treppie ducked and he knocked his fist right through the door of the kitchen dresser instead. His mother cracked up when she saw him punch his fist through the dresser, so he gave her a couple of good smacks too to make her shuddup, but she just sat down on her backside on the lino floor and pissed in her pants from all the laughing.

And then it was almost another big fuck-up here in Martha Street. But Pop quickly came and gave them all a shot of neat brandy. He can bet Pop doctored those shots with fit pills, ’cause once he’d swallowed his tot he suddenly began to feel calm again, and his mother’s laughing came out slower and slower, like a wind-up toy running down, and Treppie brushed at his face weakly, as if he’d walked into a spider’s web, or a thick mist.

Pop said they must wipe up the mess on the floor. Everything was okay, they must just wait calmly. He was going to take Treppie to his room quickly, he said, ’cause it looked like Treppie wanted to fall over.

When Pop came back he helped the old girl to her feet and stood her up against the wall. All this time she’d just been sitting there with her legs in that pool of pee in front of her, and all she could do was light up a cigarette.

Then Pop said he, Lambert, must apologise to his mother, and why in heaven’s name was all that necessary? He told Pop how Treppie had talked a lot of rubbish into their heads and how he’d wanted to punch Treppie, but Treppie ducked. So it was the dresser that got punched instead and his mother started laughing when she saw him miss, as if it was a fucken joke or something.

She couldn’t help it, she said, standing up against the door with her legs wide open, right there where Pop had stood her up, with a cigarette in one hand and that doctored brandy in the other. She couldn’t help it, it was so funny, and then she started laughing all over again. She showed Pop in slow motion how he, Lambert, had thrown himself into that big punch. And then she ducked like Treppie, but in slow motion, putting her fist slowly through the hole in the dresser. ‘Boom! Crash! Ting-a-ling!’ she slurred, and God knows it looked so funny that he and Pop started laughing too, and then she laughed even more.

So he said sorry very nicely to her and told her he hadn’t meant it. Then he began to feel sleepy again and Pop led him off to the den. When he woke up it was evening already, and it hit him like a bomb: if his girl was coming just after midnight tomorrow — that’s now today, which at midnight becomes his birthday, the 26th — then he still had a helluva lot to do. And ever since then his hands have been shaking.

Come now, Lambert, Pop said, there was nothing to tremble about. They must just calmly see what they could still do with reasonable certainty and capable speed. It wouldn’t help to try and move mountains in the space of twenty-four hours.

His mother made them all eggs on bread with tomato sauce, and then they sat down in the lounge with pen and paper and worked out what each of them could do to get things ready, even if it was just on the surface, ’cause it was appearances that counted.

His mother said if he got the lawn-mower running nicely for her, she’d cut the grass, right away. That’s ’cause there was a full moon and next door wasn’t allowed to start complaining before ten o’clock. Tomorrow, she promised, she’d tackle the kitchen.

Treppie said unfortunately he had to go work the next day, but he’d get some nice colourful Chinese lampshades, and then it would look like a jolly party. Pardon, he should say they would create a festive atmosphere, and he was sure he’d be able to get his hands on a plastic Chinese toilet seat as well.

Pop said he’d make a plan to find a mirror for the bathroom. There was still a whole panel of looking-glass left in the dressing table in their bedroom. He’d take it out of its frame and stand it up on top of the toilet. And then he’d put up the postbox, too, but this time, he said, it would be for good. For ever and ever, his mother said, and Treppie began singing: ‘Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset.’

And what about the gaps in the wall where the cement was gone and the red bricks showed through? Lambert asked. But Pop said if his girl said anything he could just show her the Wonder Wall papers. Painters always fix that kind of thing before they start painting. Then she’d know everything was okay.

Well, this morning he asked Pop for those papers and then he phoned the Wonder Wall people from across the road to ask when they were coming. The lady on the switchboard said, no, most certainly today, and if not today, then by the latest tomorrow, and thank you for your patience.

More than that he couldn’t do. If they come tomorrow, on the day of his birthday, then maybe his girl will still be here and then at least there’ll be something interesting on the go. Then she’ll be able to see with her own two eyes that the Benades aren’t just any old Tom, Dick and Harry from Triomf.