Marlene van Niekerk - Triomf

To him, a house without gutters and paint looks like a cake with no icing. Come to think of it, when his birthday comes, and his girl pitches up here, a cake with icing will be just the thing. It’s a long time since he saw cake, never mind icing.

He must remember that! Something sweet for the occasion. He’s been thinking of salty things ’cause they go with sundowners and nightcaps. But where there’s salt, there also has to be sweet. Something sweet is nice for breakfast. Maybe she’ll stay for breakfast. Surely that’s not asking too much?

And what else? A lot!

He’s going to have to fix the spot on the lounge wall where the plaster came off. With Polyfilla, and then paint over it, in fact the whole wall, ’cause it’s so dirty from the dogs. And those naked bulbs everywhere. They must get shades, even if it’s just cheapskate enamel ones. And the floor-blocks in the lounge — fasten them down and varnish them. The passage too. And he mustn’t forget the pelmet he ripped off last time when he got so pissed off with Treppie’s nonsense.

What’s more, he’s sick and tired of his mother’s headless cat. Either he must chuck it away or he must get a new one from Shoprite. One with a head.

And the hole in the front door. A thin piece of plywood should do the job.

What else? Christ, there’s a lot! He’s not going to do a fucken thing to Treppie’s room, that’s for sure. The only thing you can do there is close the door. Pop and Mol’s room too. But something will have to be done about the bathroom and the kitchen. They say in the adverts women like their bathrooms ‘flawless’. They like them to smell ‘fragrant’. And they also fancy those American kitchens with breakfast counters, but that’s aiming a bit high. To start with, maybe just scrub the lino. Clean the fridge.

And then there’s that blocked drain in his mother’s kitchen. From the washing basin. Blocked to the nines with about three months’ worth of muck in there. He’ll have to get some Drain Buster, the one in the black bottle. He remembers seeing it in the hardware shop. Maybe then they won’t have to chuck the dishwater out the kitchen door any more. That’s what his mother does, anyway. If she wants to clean something, she pours a cup of water into it and stirs it with her finger. That’s what she calls cleaning. This kind of thing’s going to have to stop. They must start washing up properly in this house, with green Sunlight from a bottle that makes foam. A whole mealtime’s dishes and glasses and pudding bowls and dishing-up spoons, with just one teaspoon. Shining bright. Never mind the fact that they haven’t got all those dishes and glasses and things.

And the toilet. That’s another fucken story. It’s got a crack in it, so it leaks on to the floor all the time. And Treppie never flushes. His pee stinks like horsepiss. Everyone’s going to have to learn to flush on the spot, so at least the water on the floor won’t be piss. ’Cause a new toilet will cost more than a hundred bucks. And a plastic seat with a lid will cost almost the same. Hell, if he can just get a seat … that china under an oke’s backside is fucken freezing, man, not to mention a woman’s backside.

And then there’s the bathroom mirror that his mother complains about so much. Jesus, that’s also another story.

Now his head’s really spinning.

Where’s he going to get all the money from?

Treppie says he and Pop are putting away all their extra money for the girl. Quality girls cost a lot of money nowadays. That’s what Treppie says. Somebody told him. He, Lambert, has almost no money of his own. Cigarettes, sweets, videos and beers. That’s about all he can afford at the end of the month. Plus maybe some duco for Flossie, and GTX for Molletjie and the lawn-mower. Then he’s really had it. Treppie buys the booze and most of their food, ’cause Pop says he can only afford the basics. Bread, Sunshine D, polony, milk, coffee, Coke, dog food in tins. Pop says only two tins of wet food a week, and for the rest Toby must eat dry food. Treppie buys those Dogmor chunks in big tins from the Chinese. They get it wholesale. Treppie says the Chinese eat those Dogmor-dogs. Chopped up into the sweet and sour. He says they call it chop suey.

At least now there’s one dog less in the house. Not even a Chinese would have eaten her.

If they want meat and jam and peaches in a tin, Pop says, then Treppie must buy it. And Klipdrift too, so they can keep up with themselves.

Pop says he’s also saving up for coffins and things for him and Mol one day. And it’s going to cost even more if she wants to be cremated like she’s been saying lately. Pop says he’s going to have to make a plan, somehow.

Where was he now?

Suddenly he can’t remember a thing on his list. The stuff’s flying through his head and he can’t get a good grip on it. He knows only broken things fly through his head like this. There’re too many broken things to fix up. Too little time. And fuck-all money.

Hell, he must just keep track here. He’ll make a list, that’s what he’ll do. He’ll start again from the beginning and write everything down on his list, then he can tick them off one by one as he finishes each thing. Then he’ll know what’s what. Then he can work out a timetable. One thing at a time. Each thing must have its own time and its own day, from now on, up to and including the big day. And when he’s finished, he can draw a line through each thing. Then he can see at any time how far he’s already got and how much he still has to do.

Right, let’s make a list, then. There on the back wall, where he can see it all the time. But where on the wall? It’s so full. He looks around his room.

It’s all going to happen right here, in this room. But he must first get rid of the rubbish. All these boxes and things. And that heap of Watchtower s.

He grabs a handful from the stack in the back corner. But then the whole pile starts tilting over and it comes crashing down all over the place. Fuck! He grabs bunches and bungs them into empty crates. Now he’s got six crates full of Watchtower s. Just going to have to burn them. Later. Let him first find a space on the wall to write down his list. He sees half a painting sticking out where the Watchtower s used to be. What was that painting, again? He’s forgotten all about it. He pushes the Fuchs to one side so he can move the Tedelex and look at the painting. Bottles and boxes come crashing down around his ears and on to his feet. When he gets everything out of the way, he sees two paintings, both badly faded. The one’s called THE JEW IN THE WASHING MACHINE. The other is THE MOLE IN THE FRIDGE. The Jew’s for real. You can see his glasses and his nose and his little hat behind the washing machine’s glass. The machine’s running and the Jew’s spinning. He’s singing ‘Fare thee well, my own true darling’ upside down as he spins. It’s a jolly painting.

As for THE MOLE IN THE FRIDGE, that’s another story. It doesn’t look like his mother, but it’s her. Her body fills up the whole fridge. Her head’s stuffed into the ice-box. There’s a gap for her neck to go through. Her head’s blue from being frozen so hard and her two front teeth stick out of her mouth. She doesn’t have a chin, and her belly’s fat and pink. She looks like she’s been slaughtered. There’s a Peking Duck inside her, at the bottom, with a fuse sticking out and flames shooting sparks at the tip. On top of the painting it says: BIG BANG 1970.

He remembers. He painted it that time when he came out of hospital, after the fire. His mouth was bitten to bits, and he had to lie around at the back here for weeks on end. He wasn’t allowed anything except soft things like milk and stuff. It was all his mother’s fucken fault. His mother, who let his spanners get lost in the long grass. She fucks everything up. But he’s not going to think about her now. He wants to write his list. He’s going to write it on top of the Jew. He shifts the Tedelex in front of THE MOLE IN THE FRIDGE. Pop will complain if he sees it, and his mother will tell him he’s got no decency. Right now he doesn’t want any more trouble with anyone. He just wants to keep things going, so everyone will stay cool.