Like it Matters (13 page)

I drove slowly out of town, not even because I didn’t want to look suspicious—

I had the radio on, softly, just like a soundtrack, and I had my window rolled down and I was staring out of it, trying to say goodbye to the most familiar sights in the world but they all looked so uncanny. The night was monstrous, and nothing was going to save it. All my thoughts kept zeroing back to that dark blood pumping out of TJ’s leg—

And my dad—

Back there alone in the house, with his head full of black sleep and a morning even worse than usual on its way …

I thought I’d hit a kind of fever pitch with the comedown stuff—

We were finally in Lakeside—

The car was whining as I took it down through the gears, driving in through Zeekoevlei in case there was a roadblock on Main Road.

I shook Charlotte a bit, but she was sleeping.

I got us home and parked the Monza and opened my door. Wet air and cold light came rushing into the car. The two of them didn’t move.

I’d thought myself into a kind of depressed stupor by that point, but somehow I managed to get Charlotte inside, carrying her, mostly. I went back to the car and cracked open a couple of windows for Dewald, then I locked him in there and slipped the keys in through one of the windows.

When I got back inside Charlotte had passed out on the couch.

I didn’t have the strength to move her again.

I had to go to bed on my own and even though I was so tired, I lay awake for ages, my head still thick with that exacting comedown logic, that web where everything linked back to the fact that I was a fuck-up, and I deserved it all.

Who knows how long it really was, but it felt like hours. I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t sleep, and then finally, the self-loathing sort of burned off, and left a kind of acrid, self-pitying grease behind

And I thought how unfair it was, how the
first time
I really dipped my head into the Lowlife, the very first time, I seemed to come out fucking baptised—it’s like I’ve been stuck in it ever since.

But that was it. That was the thing.

You always hear people call it
getting stuck
—I knew a guy once who tried to keep me sober by teaching me some Buddhist stuff, and he used to say when your mind’s got drugs in it, it’s like being stuck to flypaper in a room with a beautiful floor

And I get that, I really do—

But the actual, horrible thing is no matter how stuck you get, mostly you can still go places, you meet people, you fight, you fall in love, have a life

And unless you’re very lucky, never mind what you do to yourself, the thing you’ve got to watch out for is the fires you set along the way.

And I knew all this—

But I still drank with Charlotte

And I fucked myself up at The Rainbow Lodge

And I broke my dad’s heart

And on so many days, I feel like I’m about to give up on him—the gloomy, succumbing post-youth that stalks me now in mirrors and shop windows

And how’s it even possible?

To know so well that you’re fucking up—and at exactly the same time, knowing, just knowing, you won’t do anything about it?

I wished I could cry.

I wished I could move.

I was so sure about it again.

Dewald was TJ.

I wondered about running, before it was too late—just scraping together whatever cash I could find and trying to get a bus ticket or at least a ride with a truck driver or something—before I got recognised and the real fallout began.

But then, with this sense of peace—

This thuggishly narcotic sense of peace—

The other side of the thought hove into view.

So what’s the difference?

Hey, Ed?

Dewald or TJ, if you run or if you just stay here and wait for it—

What’s the difference?

My eyes were closed, the thought was pinballing around my head—the last thing in the world before it all got swallowed up by sleep.

What’s the difference, if you’re always going to wake up the same person that went to bed?

S
HE WAS WATCHING HER FACE IN THE MIRROR
.

That’s what it was, it was strange. She was sitting on the end of the bed with the piece of mirror that lived in the lounge propped up on a chair. She had her back to me. I was watching her watch herself

And I could see a bit of myself in the mirror too and for a while I tried to catch her eye and smile at her, but then I realised: she was busy.

Mostly, her face was kind of neutral—she looked the same as when she was looking out the window at the train or something.

Except her eyes.

They were tense and scrutinising, like she was reading very fine print.

Sometimes she’d smile at herself, then relax again, and then she’d frown or look sad—and all the time her eyes were boring into the glass and I started to worry she was on a very dark spin.

But then out of the blue—she didn’t take her eyes off her face in the mirror, and her mouth hardly moved when she spoke—

She said, “I remember my mom used to tell me,
There’s no such thing as ugly young girls
. She used to say that all the time. Obviously I never got it. Then, I mean. Now I do. I know exactly what she meant.”

“My dad used to say something similar,” I told her. “Although usually it was when he was teasing me for not having more sex.”

She didn’t smile.

“You also feel like shit?” I said.

“In my head, I think I’ve already killed myself five times this morning.”

And then still with that hard, blank look on her face, she said, “Why don’t you ever talk about your mom, Ed?”

“I didn’t know her,” I said.

But I could see that wasn’t enough—she still wanted something from me.

I made my way over on the bed and I hugged her from behind. I rested my chin on one of her shoulders and I looked right at her in the mirror. “Really, Charlotte,” I said. “The closest I’ve ever been to my mom was her books. She left stains on the pages, from her fingers. She wrote things in eight of them. You know, like study notes. And some of them smelled like perfume for a few years, but everything else—her clothes, jewellery, photos, whatever—was all sold or burned before I started having memories. I guess my dad just couldn’t have it around anymore. And he never liked talking to me about her.”

I thought I’d just unspool it to there.

Obviously there was still that one huge question lurking underneath, but god bless her, she didn’t ask. She just turned to me, her real face in front of me, and she pushed me down onto the bed and kissed me. Then she stopped and reached over and laid the mirror down flat, came back and kissed me some more.

“I’m going to do it, Ed. I really am.”

“What?”

“I’m going to go find her, my ma. I’m going to go find her, Ed.”

“
We
are, baby.”

“Ja?” she said. She was looking at me with orphan eyes.

Just then we heard Dewald in the lounge, dragging a chair over to the table. And then the other telltale sounds: rustling, scraping, fussing.

“We are.” I was nodding my head. “You know, if it didn’t involve, like, dying and believing in god and paradise and all that, Charlotte, I know, for sure, I would’ve done
anything
by now to find my mom. That might’ve fixed me a long time ago.”

She laid her head on my chest.

And just for a second there, I promise—it was as real as anything else I’ve ever felt—I got a rush of that feeling I had back when I loved her and she didn’t even remember my name

Like she could
save
me

And I said, “We’re going to get to Mozambique, and we’re going to find her, and then stuff’s going to be different. Hey? We’ll get clean and then maybe I can call my dad someday, from the fucking beach in Mozambique, and I can tell him how nicely things’ve broken for me.”

I shook her, but she didn’t respond.

“Hey, Charlotte?”

W
HAT KILLED ME
—

What really killed me—

Was how
easily
she did it.

How easily she lied to me.

I got home from Thirstie’s—I went on my own because it was raining and Dewald’s car was out of petrol, and I kind of felt like getting wet

And I heard them in the room the second I got in through the door, sniffing and giggling.

I set the bags down heavily, not even on purpose, but the sound of the bottles on the tiles in the kitchen silenced the two of them in there. I even heard her whispering, and then they both came out with the most ridiculously guilty looks you’ve ever seen.

“You guys just have a line?” I said.

And then it happened.

She looked right into my eyes—

All I could see were those pretty, sleepy eyes of hers

And she shrugged, like
I
was insane, and there was no change, not even a flicker in her eyes when she said, “No, why?”

Jesus
.

It was like a punch in the stomach.

Eventually I sort of croaked, “Charlotte, literally, there’s powder under your nose.”

She wiped her nose, and looked down at her thumb and

You know what she fucking did?

She came over to me and put her thumb in my mouth and rubbed it over my gums. “Sorry,” she said. Her hot breath in my ear. “It’s just quite early, isn’t it? I guess I felt bad.”

I said no to another bump at about 3 a.m., when they both said yes—and even though, judging by the light, it was around noon, they were battling to wake me up. They had news and they were talking and talking, but I couldn’t quite get there—it felt like I was swimming to consciousness against a strong current.

Dewald was saying, “No, bullshit. Bullshit! You’re awake, you’re
awake
, Ed. Luister.”

“Ag, let him sleep,” Charlotte said. “Shame.”

I think I managed to say, “What?”

But then Dewald started talking and I tried to follow, something about a big buy we were going to make and how we didn’t need to worry about anything anymore—

But I was so tired

It was like black ropes were pulling me down

And I must’ve passed out, and when I woke up the house was empty.

I don’t know how long they’d been knocking.

It must’ve been a while because it factored into my dreams. I came to slowly, like a very old computer booting up—

While the whole time they kept knocking, with this dull, persistent edge to it. I assumed it was a beggar.

Eventually the knocking stopped and I lit a joint that was lying next to the bed. Charlotte must’ve rolled it—it was thick as anything. I had a few pulls and then the knocking came back, and I guess I lost my patience and I got up and went straight to the front door and pulled it open.

That guy, that cop Charlotte knew—

Freddy, with the hips—

Freddy was standing there.

“Whose car’s that?” he said, pointing out at the road.

“Dewald’s.”

“
Whose
? Whatever, his battery’s been jacked.”

“What?”

“No jokes. Here’s a case number.”

He gave me a piece of paper and walked into the house.

I think the darkness must’ve stunned him. He stopped in the passage and turned to face the door again, rubbed his eyes and said, “Jirre.”

I said, “What can I do for you?” and I didn’t think about it, obviously, I just started smoking the joint I was holding. I guess I was nervous. And the worst part was, instead of just playing it cool from there, I realised what I was doing and freaked out. I looked down at it and I said, “Ah, shit, sorry.”

He waved his hand and said, “Just tell me about Charlotte.”

“What about her?”

“Poes, man. Wake up. Where’s she? What’s she up to? What’s this cousin of hers?”

“Hey, chill out,” I said. I laughed. “Do I look like I’ve got a clue about anything?”

“Jou fokken moer. Jissus. What a waste.”

I took the biggest drag of that joint that was possible, I made the cherry flare up and the paper catch fire. Then I took my time blowing out the smoke.

I said, “Freddy, listen. I’m sorry if you were waiting outside for a long time or whatever, whatever it is that’s got you so pissed off with me. I just don’t—”

“
Listen
, man,” he said, and he grabbed me by the shirt. I could feel some stitches rip in the collar. I wasn’t moving fast enough yet to flinch.

He said, “Have you ever loved someone for twenty years?”

“Definitely not,” I said.

“Exactly. So you don’t know how it feels.”

“Well …”

“What?
Hey?
” He was screaming. “
What?
”

“Whoa, just fucking tighten up there,” I said. “Shit. I mean if you want to talk, Freddy, that’s fine. But just, please man, let go of me, at least.”

He took his hands off me.

“You live …” he said, then trailed off.

He looked away and breathed. Then he looked back, right into my eyes. “You live like nothing matters.”

He turned and went back down the passage to the door.

I was talking to a silhouette there in the door frame. “That’s bullshit,” I said. “You’re wrong.”