logical, that he was where he was, sitting next to me on this couch, grinning with inane self-satisfaction.
‘Babalwa,’ I said. ‘Her name’s Babalwa and she’s drunk.’
‘Ah, a celebration. Nice. I’ve had a few myself since this shit started.’
‘What shit? Do you know what happened?’
Fats looked at me, his face deeply serious. ‘I woke up and it was like this. Empty.’
‘So you know nothing?’
‘Nothing at all. Other than advertising is a pretty damn useless business without a target market.’
‘Are there others?’ I asked. ‘Alive?’
‘Plenty.’ Fats issued a patronising pat to my shoulder. ‘At least six. Maybe more.’
‘Six,’ Babalwa groaned from the floor. ‘Six.’
C HAPTER 19
The pain did numb, eventually
‘Roy, my man, what the fuck happened to your face?’ Fats stirred sugar into his cold water and tea bag as we stood around Eileen’s impotent kettle. ‘The tooth thing. That’s a powerful look for you.’
‘Ja,’ I mumbled, lips closed. ‘Know any dentists?’
Fats sipped his cold tea and grimaced. ‘On the real though, what the fuck?’
‘Let’s just say I had an encounter with a rock.’
As the time in PE dragged I found myself slowly, creepingly, thinking about alcohol again. I had run out of weed and the rawness of being stranded – initially a strange, fixating high in itself – was fading. I began to pick my toenails viciously, vacantly, at night. Unable to watch movies, tired of listening to music, listless and disconnected from my sole companion (who herself was drinking increasing volumes of white wine and gin), I was bored.
As we roamed and foraged, I began to look for booze cabinets. Not that I was digging into them or anything, but I noticed myself noticing myself paying attention to stock levels. I began to fantasise about good red wine, about that first sip, something deep and woody, something with the power to slip me up a notch, to refocus my view. My abstract passion for red evolved from observation to actually extracting bottles from the cabinets or shelves, examining them for potential, turning them over in my hands and feeling the weight. Then I would put them back, carefully.
Eventually I found myself in a Bianca’s bedroom in Summerstrand, on the beachfront. Her room looked out on Marine Drive, over a few scrub-covered dune humps and then onto the sea. Thin raindrops were tearing into the shoreline at forty-five degrees, the southwester driving perfect, glassy waves which peaked and rolled and peaked and rolled, an occasional dolphin the only surfer taking advantage.
Having stashed her mobile, I flipped through Bianca’s photo albums, which were meticulously ordered and maintained, and which stretched right from early childhood through to the end. In pink sleep shorts and a vest, arms around mother in the backyard. Father teaching her to sail a yacht on the Sundays River. Sixteenth birthday with friends at the Pizza Hut. Hair short and styled for the occasion, light make-up, all smiles, friends and lipgloss.
I went for her father’s 2019 Zonneblom Shiraz.
I returned with a corkscrew and the bottle and lay down on Bianca’s unmade bed.
And it was beautiful, while it lasted. The warmth of the wine, the blurring, evocative safety of her photos. She was ordinary, Bianca. Dark hair. Careful smile. Eyes that sparkled and evaded in equal measures. Bianca with her sailboat. Bianca and dad chasing older brother in fancy-dress masks. Bianca baking, silly hat on head, floury hands in the air.
The wine poured through me and healed me, touching gently, reaching into all the corners. My head went warm, then cold, then warm again. As the bottle died the red crust grew on my lips. I ground it off with the heel of my palm, examining it like it had some deeper, metaphorical meaning. Which it did.
I drained the bottle and passed out, Bianca on her bike in my lap.
I woke in the dark, throbbing drunk, the wind and rain pulsing
‘Babalwa,’ I said. ‘Her name’s Babalwa and she’s drunk.’
‘Ah, a celebration. Nice. I’ve had a few myself since this shit started.’
‘What shit? Do you know what happened?’
Fats looked at me, his face deeply serious. ‘I woke up and it was like this. Empty.’
‘So you know nothing?’
‘Nothing at all. Other than advertising is a pretty damn useless business without a target market.’
‘Are there others?’ I asked. ‘Alive?’
‘Plenty.’ Fats issued a patronising pat to my shoulder. ‘At least six. Maybe more.’
‘Six,’ Babalwa groaned from the floor. ‘Six.’
C HAPTER 19
The pain did numb, eventually
‘Roy, my man, what the fuck happened to your face?’ Fats stirred sugar into his cold water and tea bag as we stood around Eileen’s impotent kettle. ‘The tooth thing. That’s a powerful look for you.’
‘Ja,’ I mumbled, lips closed. ‘Know any dentists?’
Fats sipped his cold tea and grimaced. ‘On the real though, what the fuck?’
‘Let’s just say I had an encounter with a rock.’
As the time in PE dragged I found myself slowly, creepingly, thinking about alcohol again. I had run out of weed and the rawness of being stranded – initially a strange, fixating high in itself – was fading. I began to pick my toenails viciously, vacantly, at night. Unable to watch movies, tired of listening to music, listless and disconnected from my sole companion (who herself was drinking increasing volumes of white wine and gin), I was bored.
As we roamed and foraged, I began to look for booze cabinets. Not that I was digging into them or anything, but I noticed myself noticing myself paying attention to stock levels. I began to fantasise about good red wine, about that first sip, something deep and woody, something with the power to slip me up a notch, to refocus my view. My abstract passion for red evolved from observation to actually extracting bottles from the cabinets or shelves, examining them for potential, turning them over in my hands and feeling the weight. Then I would put them back, carefully.
Eventually I found myself in a Bianca’s bedroom in Summerstrand, on the beachfront. Her room looked out on Marine Drive, over a few scrub-covered dune humps and then onto the sea. Thin raindrops were tearing into the shoreline at forty-five degrees, the southwester driving perfect, glassy waves which peaked and rolled and peaked and rolled, an occasional dolphin the only surfer taking advantage.
Having stashed her mobile, I flipped through Bianca’s photo albums, which were meticulously ordered and maintained, and which stretched right from early childhood through to the end. In pink sleep shorts and a vest, arms around mother in the backyard. Father teaching her to sail a yacht on the Sundays River. Sixteenth birthday with friends at the Pizza Hut. Hair short and styled for the occasion, light make-up, all smiles, friends and lipgloss.
I went for her father’s 2019 Zonneblom Shiraz.
I returned with a corkscrew and the bottle and lay down on Bianca’s unmade bed.
And it was beautiful, while it lasted. The warmth of the wine, the blurring, evocative safety of her photos. She was ordinary, Bianca. Dark hair. Careful smile. Eyes that sparkled and evaded in equal measures. Bianca with her sailboat. Bianca and dad chasing older brother in fancy-dress masks. Bianca baking, silly hat on head, floury hands in the air.
The wine poured through me and healed me, touching gently, reaching into all the corners. My head went warm, then cold, then warm again. As the bottle died the red crust grew on my lips. I ground it off with the heel of my palm, examining it like it had some deeper, metaphorical meaning. Which it did.
I drained the bottle and passed out, Bianca on her bike in my lap.
I woke in the dark, throbbing drunk, the wind and rain pulsing
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