I Heart Beat (5 page)

I'M SUSPENDED IN a hammock among the quince trees at the bottom of the garden, having a lovely time. I'm on talk-show radio in Detroit, America, the Yoo Ess of Aye.

The topic of the show is “What do you want for Christmas?” It's a completely lame topic, but it's the first time I've managed to use the technology that allows me to dial across the seas at the cost of a local call. I caught the show online and here I am, speaking to the American people. Yee-ha!

I've already ordered a leg wax from Santa in my best Valley Girl accent and the lady wants to know what else I want in my Christmas stocking. I tell her I want my Mom to get out of rehab so I can leave this dump. The lady moves on fast.

I'm just about to mention how I want a sober, professional, God-fearing geriatric for Grummer so I'll never have to see her again, when the topic of the talk-show pitches. I kill the call.

I've been used as a guinea pig all day. First, it was the steak casserole. Then the fish curry, and now Grummer's at my side doing a reverse Oliver Twist impersonation with a bowl of chicken tetrazzini.

“Just taste the sauce, Beatrice. You don't have to eat a whole spoon. Just a small lick,” she begs, dipping into the pasta and chicken.

I swallow hard and taste some. I declare it an absolute winner.

“But you said that about the other two. Decide for me please, dear. Which dish should I serve tonight?”

Grummer looks so pathetic, I make the final decision. I tell her she should serve all three. They're all winners.

It's Grummer's big night. In approximately two hours, five book-loving people will arrive at our home to discuss the flavour of the month:
The Da Vinci Code
.

Grummer's “To Do” list has had six items on it for the past three days:

That last point got me worried. The only books I've read in the past five years are technology and cellphone manuals. But I download the audio version of Dan Brown's book and listen to the first and last chapters. I read a couple of reviews off a book website and then update myself on the latest views from a couple of the million blogs on the subject. I come away with a few insights.

The first is that, according to the book, Jesus and I have the same strategy. He also went fishing in the church pond to catch himself a nice religious girl. The second is that Jesus was a bachelor for a good thirty years before he pulled Mary. I've only got three weeks left to pull for Grummer and she's twice his age, so time's a bit of a factor. But I, too, can be patient. The third insight is that the Catholic Church is not a big fan of the marriage. In fact, Jesus kept it rather quiet until this Dan Brown character blew the whistle on him. I don't think Grummer needs this sort of aggro when she gets hitched again, so I delete the Catholic Church from my Target Venue list. I'm down to a shortlist of two churches: Methodist and Dutch Reformed.

Grummer calls me from the garden and asks me to smarten up before the guests arrive. So I take off my jeans (black) and T-shirt (black) and put on another pair of jeans (black) and another T-shirt (black).

I go and help Grummer set the table and prepare the snacks. I put 475 peanuts in one bowl and 192 pretzels in another. I check the bookshelves. I spent a whole day arranging them into subject matter and then alphabetical order. They look lovely.

I'm folding the final creases into the napkins when The Neighbours arrive. Candy's
so excited
to be here. Tom's ticking. His nose looks like the inside of a pomegranate. He puts a bottle of wine (Chardonnay) on the table.

“I like red myself, but I thought you might like the white,” he says to Grummer.

Boooiiiiing! News Flash! I can see the headline in the
Village Voice
: “Book Club Meeting Bombs as Mavis Wellbeloved hosts Dry Evening.”

Grummer looks a little tense. Our house doesn't do booze. Our house faces a night of shame. I tell Grummer I'll be right back.

I shove my principles into my sock drawer and grab one of the bikes from the garage. I haven't ridden one of these things in five years, but, as they say, it's like riding a bicycle.

I see the green robot flashing outside the pubbingrill. It's happy hour and the place is buzzing.

There's a cross lady standing over a table, shouting at a man who's got seven empty Black Label beer bottles lined up in front of him. “Here you are again! Drinking all the money. Come home before I klap you all the way to Cape Town!” she screams, threatening to hit him. And the men around the bar look and laugh.

I catch Toffie in the kitchen slicing lemons.

I don't have any time for small talk. “Toffie. Give me wine,” I say.

He gives me a reproachful look. “Ag no, Beat, man. I can't do that. You're underage. But hows about a Fanta?”

I take the knife out of his hand. I do a quick calculation of how long it would take to slice and dice Toffie into a million pieces. Too long. Perhaps another time. I give him the low-down in five clipped sentences: Grummer hosting book club. Don't have booze. They want booze. Face shame. Need wine fast.

Toffie gets it. He's not as slow as he looks. “Ag, Beat, man. Why didn't you say so in the first place?”

He goes around the back of the bar and comes back with a bag containing six bottles of wine. Three red, two white and one rosé.

“What you doing tomorrow?” he asks. “I've got this place I go to and want you to come.” He holds the bag of wine tightly against his chest and waits for me to answer.

There are times in one's life when one has to do unpleasant things, like peeling onions, cleaning up vomit and putting out the garbage. This is one of those times. I say through my teeth that I'll see him in the morning then — and I grab the wine.

I get back home as the last guest arrives. Grummer's serving apple juice and everyone's eyeing Tom's Chardonnay with mean eyes. I give Grummer the wine and get some glasses.

“Beatrice, you're a good girl,” Grummer says and she squeezes my shoulders.

Whatever.

Candy's
puffing
smoke out her nose and
flicking
ash on the carpet. So I get some ashtrays. Everyone else grabs their bags and lights up. Except for the one guy.

He stands next to Grummer and he's sipping apple juice. He's showing her a passage from the Bible and then he points to a page in
The Da Vinci Code
. He brushes a grey curl off his forehead as he makes a point. Grummer nods in agreement and smiles at him.

Ka-ching!

EVERYONE WENT HOME. Finally. When they did, Grummer burnt lemon-scented candles to get the stink of cigarette smoke out of the house and then coughed all night. She's allergic.

This morning I'm sitting on the veranda with my laptop, typing up a report on the book club meet. Grummer's sipping tea and watching the honeybirds play in the Lion's Ear flowers. She's ticking off all the birds she sees in her
Roberts Bird Guide
. She likes to keep track.

My report says:

Five guests arrived at approximately 5:00 p.m. GMT. They were Mr and Mrs Thomas Phillips, otherwise known as Tom and Candy. There was Gill Goldman, a forty-something female with big breasts. The fourth was Eric Stephenson, a chain smoker, thirty-nine (although with diminishing life expectancy), with smelly breath and stress acne. The last guest was Mr Alan Rodderick, aka Mr Perfect.

My report continues with a detailed description of Mr Perfect, a summary of which says:

He dresses like a Gap model. He speaks like a cellphone advert. He eats nice and neat. (He is a piscatarian — loved Grummer's fish curry.) He's the librarian in Hermanus and studied at both Cape Town and Stellenbosch universities (got a Bee Aye from Yoo Cee Tee and Honours in Library Studies from Stellenbosch Uni). He's fifty-nine, unmarried and goes to church (St Luke's Anglican in Hermanus). He has hair — but only on his head — and absolutely doesn't drink (alcohol).

I enter his name under The Target. I assess my timeline. We've been here a week and I've made progress! Three more weeks to go. I am feeling pretty chuffed with myself. Mr Perfect's coming for lunch on Sunday after church. I set it up. This is how I did it: while Tom, Candy and the other non-targets drank their way through Toffie's wine supply and talked about who was stealing whose
leiwater
and who got fined cheating on the water restrictions, Grummer and Mr Perfect chatted about
The Da Vinci Code
.

They both agreed that Mr Brown had perhaps been selective in his use of material and that poor Jesus never really made it with Mary. Which is bad news, considering he's over 2,000 years old and still single. I should give him a couple of tips on book clubs.

And then Mr Perfect (“call me Alan — with one el”) asked me who my favourite author was. I mentioned a couple of the Google and Nintendo geeks, but Alan didn't seem to know their work. I spotted the gap and took it. “Alan.” (Ahem.) “Alan,” I said, “could you perhaps recommend a couple of good authors. My mom's not too big on books, so I feel a little lost.” Ag, shame!

And so it was agreed. Alan's coming for lunch and bringing me some books. And he's bringing his housemate Greg, an old guy of about sixty-two who runs the Hermanus bookshop. Two book-lovers at one sitting. Grummer will be spoilt for choice.

I'm tapping out the last triumphant line of my report when Toffie arrives. I grind my teeth and get my bike. Grummer asks about lunch. Toffie says it's fine, he's packed a picnic. Oh, yippee!

Toffie takes me to this place on the river just outside the dorp. It's a deserted, walled reservoir. He's put in some doors and windows, and there's a sheet to make like a sort of roof. He calls it his den. I call it a dump.

He's got a whole lot of stuff in a box hidden in a hole in the wall: his stamp collection, with his precious Penny Black (yawn), his baby teeth and some old South African coins. He calls it his treasure. I call it so totally yesterday.

Toffie says it's time for the picnic and we go down to the river's edge. He spreads out a blanket and unpacks his rucksack. I'm not sure the day can get any worse, but it does.

There are beef sandwiches, lamb sandwiches and ham sandwiches. I tell Toffie I don't do meat.

“Ma said you wouldn't, so she packed you a special lunch,” he says and waves some peanut butter sandwiches in my face. Real special.

I whip out my cellphone and go online. I google peanut butter sandwiches and learn that Bill Gates, Madonna and Lance Armstrong eat them. Swell.

I watch a huge red snake swim lazily across the river to the clump of reeds at the other side. I point it out to Toffie.

“I call him Rooi Duiwel. He's always here,” Toffie says.

I eat a peanut butter sandwich. It tastes like brain power, artistic genius and sweat. I try to ignore the bread taste and eat three more. Toffie finishes seven sandwiches, makes a big burp and goes and swims. He heads out towards the reeds and I cross my toes and hope Red Devil the snake finishes him off.

I fall asleep on the blanket and I dream that Melinda Gates is chasing me on a bike, singing, “Give me back Bill's brain food.”

I wake up with Toffie shaking half the river all over me. His face is inches from mine.

“Jis, Beat, but your nose is red. You've caught the sun,” he says.

I tell him it's time I caught my ride home and leave him by the river.

Grummer's out walking, so I go and check out my nose. It looks like I'm related to Tom of The Neighbours. I cover my face with cold cream.

Over supper Grummer tells me she's looking forward to going to church with me again at St Paul's on Sunday morning. I say no can do. Grummer must appreciate that the morning service is a dead end. And, anyway, Mr Perfect's in the bag. There's no more need to hit the churches.

“Grummer, we've got people for lunch at one o'clock. We don't have time for morning church,” I say. Grummer says she's preparing the night before. It's cold pickled fish and salads for lunch. Can't wait.

“Grummer,” I say, choosing another tactic, “Grummer, I battle with the Afrikaans. I need to hear the Lord's word in English.”

Grummer's eyes narrow with suspicion. She gives me a
skeef
look and says it had appeared to her that I had enjoyed the sermon last week.

I give it my best: “I liked the fact that John the Baptist went to the desert for rehab, but how could he fall off the wagon and go back to drinking when Jesus arrived? How could he, Grummer?” I say.

Grummer says we'll go to the Anglican service in the evening.

I say sure thing.

I think: Mr Alan Rodderick. I think: Mrs Mavis Rodderick.

It is a sure thing.

IT'S SUNDAY AFTERNOON and I'm lying by the river at Toffie's den. I'm watching Rooi Duiwel sunning himself by the reeds and I'm wondering if he's going to peel as badly as my nose.

I'm also thinking that I'm a category-one loser. All in capitals: CATEGORY-ONE LOSER. Toffie and his pals should make me eligible for life membership. I deserve to have BIG L tattooed onto my forehead and put on a current affairs television programme like
Carte Blanche
to tell the viewers: “The Story of a Loser”.

It goes like this: at approximately 10:58 a.m. GMT, Mr Perfect and his housemate Greg arrived at Chez Wellbeloved for Sunday lunch. Alan, with one el, brought some books for Beatrice Wellbeloved. Present location: propping up the broken leg of the desk in her bedroom.

Greg, with two gees, brought Mrs Mavis Wellbeloved an orchid. Yellow. Present location: pride of place on the dining-room table.

The widow Wellbeloved was looking understated and casual (read dowdy), dressed in Capri pants (navy blue) with cotton shirt (white). Beatrice Wellbeloved was similarly casually attired in long pants (black) with matching T-shirt.

The lunch proceeded in an atmosphere of congenial jollity. Discussion topics included gardening, God, adult fiction. And then gardening, God, children's fiction.

The television camera could not have missed, as the keen-eyed Beatrice Wellbeloved should not have missed, how Alan and Greg looked at each other throughout lunch. Nor could the camera have missed the nurturing way Greg spooned clotted cream onto Alan's bowl of berries. However, should the camera have failed to capture these intimate gestures, the dialogue at the end of the meal, when Greg and Alan had driven off in their white Mini Cooper, would have put the
Carte Blanche
viewers in the picture.

“What a super couple, don't you think, Beatrice?” Mrs Wellbeloved said to her red-nosed granddaughter.

“Couple?” said Chico the Clown to Mrs Wellbeloved.

“Yes, they've been together for thirty-five years. Goodness me, that's almost as long as your grandfather and I were together,” said Mrs Wellbeloved, taking a cunningly hidden wad of tissues from her bra strap and dabbing her eyes.

While washing up the lunch dishes Mrs Wellbeloved commented further: “If your grandfather had been around, he would never have allowed Alan and Greg into the house. He always saw things so black and white. There was right and wrong. And in his eyes, Greg and Alan's special friendship would have been wrong,” Grummer said, putting away the dessert bowls.

Exactly! Grandpa and me would have agreed on this. It's wrong. It's not the way it should be. Alan is Mr Perfect. And now I get it that he's Greg's Mr Perfect. It's a crime.

Grummer can see how cross I am. She gives me this long talking-to about how the Lord loves everybody and that prejudice is an ugly thing. Grummer's getting me wrong. She forgets that Mom owns an advertising company. There are a zillion Gregs and Alans and Betties and Barbaras working for Mom. But I never wanted any of them to marry Grummer. What a waste of time and FOCUS!

The television camera zooms in and freezes on the face of The Loser and then the credits appear.

I text my two and only friends back home the details of my new loser status. They don't respond. Hey, I can't blame them. Who wants to hang with people like me and Toffie in the Loser Club?

Toffie arrives just as I'm thinking about offering myself up to Rooi Duiwel as a living sacrifice. I don't know how he knew I was here. I suppose losers can smell their own.

“Hey, Beat, want to swim?” he asks.

I tell him I want to drown myself.

He offers me a peanut butter sandwich.

I eat four.

He asks me what I'm thinking about.

I tell him I'm thinking that I'm related to the Son of God. I think my dad ditched me just after I was born to protect me from the Catholic Church and their secret organisation. He left me and Mom so that the Holy Grail, me, the bloodline of the Holy Trinity, would survive undetected by Silas the albino monk.

Toffie's shocked. He says Silas works for his ma in the bar, but Silas is black. Not albino. And he's no monk; he's married. He lives in one of the shacks in the squatter settlement above Die Skema for people from the Transkei. They call the settlement Die Trein or The Train 'cos it snakes like a train up the hillside.

I tell Toffie he's an idiot. Then I tell him all about
The Da Vinci Code
.

Toffie cans himself laughing. “But Beat, everybody knows that Jesus wasn't a ladies' man.”

I'm furious with Toffie. I've had it up to here with happy bachelors and miserable moffies. I've had enough of Mr Perfect and his super housemate Greg. And I tell Toffie too.

“Ag, Beat,” Toffie says. “You mustn't be so prejudiced. My uncle's a moffie and he's okay. Gay people are fine, really.” I want to hit him.

It's funny how people can look like something and be something else. I tell him I never knew Mr Potato, our plumber, his uncle, was gay. Toffie says he didn't know either. But his father's other brother, his Uncle Koos, definitely is. He lives in an artists' colony in Greytown and works with pastels.

I try it on and get it. Koos Appel. Appel Koos. Apricot! The apricot in the potato and pineapple family. I feel so much better. Everything fits as it should.

I tell Toffie that I think his family's mad. That they're all crazy with their fruity, vegetable, silly names. And Toffie agrees and says that the thought of his crazy family makes him feel very happy.

And I feel very unhappy. 'Cos I know that unless I pull a nice old man for Grummer, I'm going to be stuck with her and people like Toffie until I'm old enough to buy my first legal Lotto ticket. And 'cos I'm feeling so mad, I tell him about the project.

Toffie laughs at me. “Ag, Beat, man. You should've asked. I know all the old
ballies
in this dorp. Ask me for a list of the old men and I'll give it to you. I'll get your ouma fixed up in no time,” he says and then he takes off his T-shirt and goes and swims with Rooi Duiwel.

I go and sit on the jetty and take off my takkies. I put my feet in the water and they feel wet. And I think about how Mom always says that the key to successful project management is leveraging the talents of employees. And I look through my shades at Toffie flipping around in the water and I think he's about as bad as it will get.

At the end of it all, I blame the sugar in the peanut butter sandwiches. But today my feet feel cool. And I decide: okay, Toffie, you're on board Project: Pulling for Grummer. We start at nine o'clock.

Tomorrow!