I Heart Beat (2 page)

AS SOON AS we get into the car to leave the airport (although whether you could call this 1975 Ford Cortina a car is debatable), I hit the MapInfo website on my cellphone and get the directions to our destination. My cellphone is my most valuable accessory. Mom got it off a client, and I took it off Mom. It can do practically anything — anything except eat or drink.

Grummer isn't keen on newfangled technology (yes, “newfangled” is still a word in current use by her generation). She has a mapbook, and every few kilometres she pulls over and checks that she's following the correct route. When she's not reading the mapbook, she drives like a snail on tranquilizers.

I think it's when we make the third wrong turn in twenty minutes that I decide to do what Mom suggested in her babalaas state yesterday morning: I'll fix Grummer up with a new husband just like Grandpa. I'll pull her a nice old wrinklie and they can be happy together — far, far away from me. Being forced into another holiday with Grummer will turn me into a head case.

I decide on a name for my matchmaking project: Pulling for Grummer. I use the nightmare journey for a bit of research. I'm going to need to know what I'll be dealing with, so I do an intensive client survey.

It's not hard to get Grummer to talk about herself. She tells me about the retirement village where she has a little house in Port Elizabeth, a small coastal town a day's drive from Cape Town where the wind doesn't stop blowing. Except she calls this windy hell-hole Pee-Eee. Just when I'm getting really excited (not) about the goings-on at this happening place, Grummer starts up about her love for Jesus: how she likes to go to church and talk to God; how much strength God gives her to get through difficulties; how God talks to her when she's clipping her toenails … On and on. Okay, Grummer, too much detail.

Next, she's full-steam ahead about her sewing group. Yes, I love patchwork quilts too, Grummer (not). Oh, and the garden. Sigh! (The sigh is Grummer's. Mine's the mute yawn that gives my face a stitch.)

After two hours Grummer isn't talking any more — even
she
finds herself boring — and I'm done with my list of questions. I take a photo of her with my cellphone (in profile, not her best) and enter a brief text snapshot. I'll fill in the detail later. As it stands, the client snapshot looks like this:

That's it. Let's face it: I don't have a lot to work with here.

I fiddle with Grummer's cellphone. It's one of those that came in when cellphones were first invented, like a hundred years ago. I listen to the voice message. It goes like this: “Hello, this is Derek Wellbeloved. Mavis and I aren't able to come to the telephone right now, but please leave a message and one of us will return your telephone call as soon as we are able … how do you stop this thing? Mavis, which button must I press?” And then there's lots of shuffling and the message ends.

Well, that's no good now, is it? We can't have a prospective squeeze for Grummer calling her and getting this message. He'll think she's already got someone.

“Grummer,” I say. “Grummer, you've got a very old message on your cellphone. Why don't you change it?”

“I don't know how to,” she says. Grummer's knuckles are white on the steering wheel.

“No problem, I'll just quickly do it for you.” I start to push a couple of buttons.

“No, don't. Leave my telephone alone. It's not a toy.” Grummer sounds all shrill. She gets the pink circles on her cheeks. Then she says in a calmer voice, “I like to telephone myself sometimes and listen to that message … when I want to hear your grandfather's voice.”

Ka-ching! I hear the sound of The Jackpot. I quickly text my two and only friends back home, go online and upload Grummer's comment to our corny comment blog. Within minutes they text me their response. It's rated a big ten. Top score. They're going to struggle to beat it. Yee-ha!

I say nothing to Grummer. One doesn't want to encourage too much sharing. But I take stock of Project: Pulling for Grummer. She's not great material to start with, and now I hear that she's still got a thing for the dead guy. Things aren't looking up. I'll have to charge double my normal rate. Ha-ha!

We finally come to the turn-off for the village and it's pretty dark. We've been on the road for four hours. Not too bad for a two-hour journey. Way to go, Grummer! I make a quick mental note: do not enter Grummer as a contestant in
The Amazing Race.
She would be the one still dithering about at the starting line while all the other participants had already made it home.

Our dream holiday home for the next four weeks (twenty-seven days and three hours) is set far back on a piece of jungle. We make it up the driveway, and Grummer manages to park without completely taking out a guava tree.

We find the front door using my cellphone as a torch. As I unlock the door I hear the sound of the ocean. Now isn't that nice, hey? We're twenty kilometres from the beach and still it's like the sea is on our doorstep.

As I turn off the alarm I feel water soak into my takkies. My feet are soon wet through.

Grummer finds the light switch and we look around us; we're standing in a pond. There are a million cockroaches floating tummy-side up as well as a couple of bloated cats. Correction: they're rats. Well, that makes me feel so much better (not).

I follow the sound of the waterfall to the bathroom. It's the geyser, gushing water all over the place. It's been doing this for a long time 'cos the house is swamped.

Typical! Well done, Georgia Wellbeloved, you've done it again. Trust Mom to buy a house and leave it unattended for nine months. Grummer says it: “How could Georgia do this to me? It's so typical of your mother. Can she never do anything right?”

Hold it right there, Grummer! That's my mother you're badmouthing. No one gets to trash Mom but me. It's
my
perk. I'll have to set her straight on this later.

“I think we may need to telephone a plumber,” Grummer says.

Yeah, like duh!

I STAND OUTSIDE on the grass and text “plumber” to Info Service. In a few minutes three names and numbers land in my inbox. The first is Appel, the second is Dreyer and the third is Pretorius. I like to do things methodically, so I call the first.

A voice answers and shouts over the sound of loud music: “Just hold on. I've got to take this outside. I can't hear a blerrie thing in here. Hey man, Pine, just keep an eye on my beer while I get this, hey.”

And then I hear a male voice jeering: “So the wife's finally got you. It's home James for you.” And then there's a lot of laughter.

Grummer's sweeping water out of the front door. It's pouring out onto the veranda.

I brief Mr Appel on the problem. “Jislaaik,” he exclaims in dismay. “That's not good. All that water. And there's a drought on and water restrictions. Your water bill's going to be a killer.”

I don't care about a drought or water restrictions. I just want the water to stop pouring out of the geyser.

Mr Appel says he'll be here in two ticks. He's in the pubbingrill on the main road.

It's two ticks and forty minutes later and Mr Appel arrives in a bakkie. The side of the vehicle says: An Appel a day keeps your plumbing OK. There's someone with him. An alarm goes off in my head as a fat kid walks towards me. Loser Alert! He's wearing khaki shorts, slip-slops and a T-shirt with a collar. I try to snap a photo of him with my cellphone, but he won't keep still. Damn, my two and only friends back home will never believe me.

“Sorry hey, I had a couple more dops for the road,” Mr Appel says to Grummer. His breath smells to me like he's had more than just a couple.

“But I'm here now, so let's fix the problem,” he says.

Grummer takes him through to the bathroom, and me and Loser get to spend some special time together. I don't think it gets any sweeter than this: Loser's name is Christoffel, but I must call him Toffie. Yip! Toffie Appel, get it?

But it gets better. His uncle the plumber's name is Art. He's not joking — Art Appel. Am I the only one in the world who thinks calling someone Potato in Afrikaans is freaksville? And just when I thought I had died and gone to loser heaven, he hands me the olive in the cocktail: his dad, the guy who owns the pubbingrill in the main road, is Pine. I don't think I need to spell it out. Are these people for real?

There's no time for any more relatives 'cos Mr Potato, the boozy plumber, is done. He's managed to turn off the water for now and he'll be back tomorrow to turn it back on and finish the job.

I can't wait. If he doesn't bring his nephew and brother along with him, I'll be a wreck; a family portrait for the loser gallery blog will mean a big score for me.

I'm feeling hungry so I call Info for Mr Delivery to get some take-outs. Mr Who? They don't have him registered in the area database. I've landed in the middle of the dark ages. Things can't get worse. Then they do.

Grummer's getting some stuff out of a plastic packet. She calls it supper. “I thought we would be peckish when we arrived, so I brought along one or two things to tide us over until we can shop tomorrow,” she says, opening some Tupperware containers.

I pick the raisins out of the rusks and take some pieces of cucumber from the salad. There's creamy dressing on the cucumber so I pass and stick to the raisins. Grummer eats carefully with a plastic knife and fork and uses a tissue to dab her lips. I like a neat eater. I make a mental note to add this quality to her client snapshot.

“If your grandfather had been here, things would have been hunky-dory,” Grummer says. “You know he was a dentist? He could always fix fiddly things. He was so good with his hands. He always carried a toolbox with him for ‘in case'.”

In between careful mouthfuls, Grummer talks about the dead guy. As she rambles on, she starts to dab her eyes with the tissue. Oh no, Grummer, don't you dare! I'm not big on crying. I can't cry. A bit like Nelson Mandela, except I didn't mess up my tear ducts in a quarry. My tears just dried up five years back when Guido left. Correction: when Mom chucked him out and then went on to Husband Number Five.

Before Grummer gets out of hand, I check out the house. It's full of the previous owner's stuff, even their old towels and sheets. Eeeeuuuuw!

Mom bought it like this to save all the hassle of doing it herself. That's my Mom: a one hundred per cent proof slob.

I take the bedroom off the lounge, and Grummer chooses the one off the kitchen. I think there's enough space between us. My bedroom's damp. I strip the bed and put a bath towel on the pillow. I find a sheet that was white in a former life.

I lie on the bed and count all the bamboo sticks on the ceiling. There are 387 bamboo sticks. I get up and count all the stone tiles on the floor — 172. After that, my tummy finally stops shouting.

Before I go to brush and floss, I do some essential preparation for tomorrow. I upload the text snapshot and photo of Grummer from my cellphone to my laptop and open a special file called Project: Pulling for Grummer. I then make a few brief notes on snapshot number two. The target snapshot looks like this:

I realise I'm not quite cracking it and save the file to my new memory stick. I get my cellphone and make a quick “To Do” list for tomorrow. It looks like this:

I do my bathroom routine (no water until Mr Potato fixes it tomorrow, argggh!), take the bands out of my hair and put a stocking on my head to keep the hair out of my face. I rub cream on my feet and put on a pair of socks. It's now 10:00 p.m. GMT. Midnight for losers. There are twenty-seven days left to accomplish Project: Pulling for Grummer.

I add a last point to my “To Do” list:

FOCUS!