Like it Matters (10 page)

I got the pen and the note out the plastic sleeve, and I wrote on there:

And we walked home past Thirstie’s.

Two days later, we’d actually gone to a meeting, but we were a bit drunk when we got there and even though we thought we were being under wraps about it, they’d kicked us out

And then that afternoon in bed, she was taking a dark view of things

And then we both were

And then both of us were jawing for something harder than booze and then I can’t remember how we got there but we were crying

And she was saying, “Okay, so we’re allowed to drink, fine. But not in the daytime anymore.”

“What about weekends?”

“Then maybe.”

I tried to picture that—the two of us observing hours. I’d done that before, a few times, but with me what normally ended up happening was that I’d get so childishly depressed in the sober hours, so angry with my lot, that I was a nightmare to be around, and it was usually better for everyone when I just chucked it in and went back to the steady burn.

I didn’t want her to see that in me, not so early in this whole thing. Hard to fall in love with a coward.

“So how about just a plain, easy rule then?” I said. “Hey? Only drinking. Fuck times and whatever, okay? Only drinking. Charlotte, I’ll be honest, that’s still something for me.”

“Ja,” she said. “Okay. Only drinking.”

“That’s The Rule?”

“That’s The Rule.”

“And we don’t feel bad about it?” I said. “Well, even if we do. Then we tell each other
at least it could be worse
, right?”

“Exactly,” she said.

She went off to the kitchen, I thought maybe to pour us another drink.

But she came back with a pair of scissors.

She sat on the side of the bed and took my hand, then cut the bracelets off our wrists and rolled them up and packed them away in a box she’d brought with her from home.

W
E WERE SO SURE IT WAS A BABY
—

This parking lot behind the fabric shops by the Checkers—

We heard the thing bawling and then in the corner of the lot, next to the garbage skips, we saw a bundle of rags lying there and I told her to hold the bottle and I ran over but it was just a bundle of rags, the crying was coming from the first floor in the block of flats on the other side of the wall.

She caught up with me, and I pointed up to the flats and I said, “How fucking loud’s that baby?”

“Jeez,” she said, poking through the bundle. “I really thought that’s what it was, hey.”

“Me too. Did you see me run?”

“Fuck,” she said. “What would we have done? I was going to pick it up and take it home, I think. I think that’s what I was thinking.”

I laughed and said, “Wow, Jesus. Well thank god it’s nothing. Imagine us as parents!”

And she started crying, on the spot

And there was a sip or two left in the bottle but she threw it at me, then just turned round and started walking home.

She locked me out of the bedroom but only for an hour, and then we were lying there with a glass in our hands, quiet and sad, dwelling on my crime of making us feel shit about ourselves. She wasn’t angry anymore. She was holding my hand.

It was probably around lunchtime and the room was bright grey. I think I was flirting with passing out but then she said, “Why’s it so hard, Ed?”

“What?”

“Life.”

I was so tired by that point, and that horse felt so thoroughly fucking flogged, I said, “Come on, it’s not
that
hard, Charlotte. Look what we get to do all day. And it’s going to rain tonight and our house isn’t going to leak. Remember this morning we saw those pictures of those shacks washing away.
That’s
hard.”

“Ja, but that’s it.
Exactly
, Ed. It’s hard even when it’s not. I mean, even worse, look at our parents. Didn’t whites have like the best lives in the world when they were young? Look what ours did with them.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

“You know actually, I never want a baby. You’re right. Not if the poor thing’s going to grow up with us.”

“Okay, but haven’t we done this now?” I said. “We’re not that bad. We’re sticking to The Rule, aren’t we?”

“Ja, but I mean like how we live, Ed. No, I mean like,
where
.”

“Muizenberg?”

“No man, fuck. It’s like … When I was young, I used to have these nightmares where my parents were fighting so I’d go out for a walk. Or they’d send me out to go buy something. And I’d be walking around the neighbourhood and I’d just happen to hear it, music and voices, and I’d go over to a house on a corner with a big back garden, different corner, different house every time—but in the garden, always, were all the kids I knew from school, their parents, the teachers, some people from town, basically everyone I knew in the world, all just having a party and giving each other presents and stuff. They were always the worst dreams I had, Ed, and I’d be all weird at school for days afterwards, like just in my own little world, feeling so … outside.”

“Ag,” I said. “I guess that’s why there’s such things as margins. Hey?”

“How can you just
say
that?”

“What? There’s more of us in the margins than in the middle, Charlotte. You know that.”

“Ja, but what
kind
of people, Ed? Hey? Fucking doomed nobody people.” She was staring at me in a way that made the skin on my face burn. “Hey, Ed? Tell me I’m wrong.”

I
COULDN
’
T BELIEVE HOW BROKE
I
WAS ALREADY
. How broke
we
were.

“Shit, this is a problem,” I told her.

“Ja?”

“Did I pay rent?”

“When?”

“Like two, three weeks ago. I did, hey? Where’re my envelopes?”

A couple of months back, I’d pretty much gutted my bank account and added it to the stack of cash I’d stolen from The Rainbow Lodge and split all the money into envelopes that said things like
FOOD
and
RENT
and
FUN
on them. She’d stuck the money she’d made from her Wayne scam in there as well—but then winter had sort of passed us by, in a blur of booze and blankets and repeating
CDS
and sex.

“No, that’s gone,” she said. “Long gone. I remember.”

“Shit,” I said. “We have like fifteen hundred left, and that’s it.”

“That’s a few weeks,” she said.

“Ja, but then what?”

She smiled and rubbed her hands over her face, like she was waking herself up. She was drunker than me. “I have marketable skills,” she said.

I laughed and kissed her. “You know what I’ve always wanted to do? Like full-time, I mean. But I’m sure it’s not a good idea.”

“What?”

“I’ve always wanted to bet horses.”

“Bet them what?” she said.

I laughed, then went and poured myself another drink to try catch up.

I told her what I knew about horses. Just the stuff I could remember hearing from my dad—his
insights
, that’s what he called them—plus a couple of improvements I picked up myself, mainly from listening to what the other guys up at the tote used to tease him about. I told her about form books and how some horses you had to watch, because they were like performers, and they’d only really turn it on if it was a big race and there was a crowd there and a lot of fuss. I even told her how much I used to like going to the tote because that was the only time I ever saw my dad really talk to black people, and even better, how I wasn’t allowed to mention horses unless it was just the two of us together, like it was a secret he wanted to keep even from petrol attendants and strangers at the movies.

Talking and talking, till she squeezed my hand and said, “Ed, hang on.”

She was looking at me and there was something in her face.

It looked like she had news.

Jesus
.

From where?

“Okay, you know the guy from the bank that keeps calling me?”

For about a week, maybe longer, her phone had been ringing at least a couple of times a day. “That fucker,
still
?”

“Ja. Um … Okay. I lied about that.”

I must’ve looked panicked—

She took my hand and she said, “Just … okay, just let me explain. It’s my cousin, Ed.”

“Your
cousin
?”

“Ja, his name’s Dewald.”

“
Dewald
? Okay. Why didn’t you just say so?”

She smiled, but in a sad way. She bit her lip. “Ed, you probably think I’m the black sheep, hey? God. Dewald. He’s been into some dark stuff since he was
young
, Ed, and then he comes right for a while, and then he’s off again, properly fucking off.”

“What’s he like now?”

“I think he’s alright. But he’s been up in Pretoria and now he wants to move back this side.”

“So he wants to come here?”

“Ja.”

“That’s cool, but I mean then we’ll definitely have to get a job or whatever. Or this horses thing—”

“No, you see! This is the thing, this is the thing.” She was rubbing my hands with her hands. She looked so happy. “He was up in Pretoria for technikon, then he got a job there working with machines, I think, but he got retrenched, Ed. That’s the thing. Like last month, he got retrenched.”

“So, what, he’s got a lot of money right now?”

“Fucking
lots
. Lots and lots.”

“So when’s he coming?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

She kissed me.

“Soon?”

“Probably soon.”

And how was I supposed to know what was coming next?

As far as I could tell, we’d just got a lifeline—no having to pull things straight just yet, no
jobs
, nothing to worry about

“Rock ’n’ roll,” I said, and I kissed her again.

It was sweet how Charlotte got the house ready for Dewald, even if most of the time she was quiet, really quiet, and her face had this sore look on it that just wouldn’t go away.

It took her two days, and god, she worked slowly. She wanted to do it all by herself, but what didn’t help was that she was drinking while she went along, and so whenever she was done with something she had to clean up after herself again. It was like another version of a Greek punishment and eventually I started following her with my own bucket and sponge. On the day he was meant to arrive we promised we wouldn’t drink and she made supper, and she got me to cut about a ton of ivy off the walls outside. Everything was done by six, and we stood for a while in the lounge with the last light of day pressing in through the windows, and she’d found a warm yellow bulb for the lamp and the couch was made up like a bed again.

Even though it actually looked something like a home, we weren’t fooled—we knew how rickety it was—and for the longest time we just stood in the lounge and held each other, and I know I was dying for a drink.

Dewald was late, though, really late, and he wasn’t answering his phone and obviously that made us worry, and so we started drinking when the sun went down and we didn’t feel too dingy about it. Then, just before midnight, Charlotte’s phone rang and we found out Dewald had just made it through a roadblock the other side of the tunnel coming in from Paarl. She told me that, and then she said, “Wow, Ed, he’s coming.”

Her voice wasn’t right, though.

And her face—

“What’s going on?” I said. “Are you okay?”

And it was like what happens with little girls—her chin scrunched up and then it shook and then her eyes sprang tears, and I hugged her while she cried into my
T
-shirt and she kept saying, “I’m
scared
, Ed, I’m so scared.”

“Why, Charlotte? What’s up? What’s happening?”

“Are we going to be good with The Rule?”

“Ja, of course. Of course we will,” I said, but it was fucked, it was like the act of
saying
the words immediately made me doubt them, and I started catching her anxiety in a big way.

She didn’t cry for long, and while she went off to go wash her face I poured myself another drink and I asked myself if there really was a difference anymore, whether or not we took anything else while Dewald was around.