Blind Date at a Funeral (13 page)

The meal helped. It made me feel half human again, although I must have looked like an animal. I was unshaven with mussed hair and a wrinkled shirt.

When I finished eating, I sat back and stretched. The morning made things a little easier. It was beautiful and fresh.

The artist was still painting.

I paid my bill and stood up. I smiled at the artist. I was feeling better.

‘Sit!' he said.

I looked around.

‘You,' he said, pointing a brush at me.

I touched my chest with my thumb.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘You sit. I paint.'

I sat.

‘Where are you from?' he asked in a thick French accent.

‘I'm South African,' I said.

He nodded.

‘Where are you from?' I asked in return.

No answer. He painted.

I sat and made notes about my trip in my travel journal.

‘You don't mind?' he said, pointing his brush at me again.

‘I'm quite flattered,' I replied.

‘Okay,' he said and went back to the painting.

An hour and a few more coffees later, he took a step back and put down his brush. He rubbed his hands together.

‘I like,' he said, tilting his head to the side. He wiped his hands with a paint-stained cloth. ‘You like?'

I put money on the table for the bill and walked across to the easel.

His painting was beautiful. The man was obviously a master. But there was something missing from his painting.

Me.

I wasn't in the picture.

‘Why did you make me wait while you painted?' I said.

‘I like zee company,' he said, matter-of-factly. ‘I don't like to paint alone. No. Zat I don't like.'

I was a little put out.

‘Why didn't you put me in the picture?' I said.

‘Turn around,' he said, pointing at the café behind me.

I turned and looked at the scene behind me.

‘Are you in the picture?'

‘No,' I replied, looking at the empty table where I had been sitting a few seconds earlier. ‘Obviously I'm not in the picture but …'

‘Well,' he interrupted, shrugging his shoulders in typical French fashion, ‘then how can you be in zee picture?'

(Soundtrack: ‘Dancing Queen' by Abba)

I saw her the day I moved into the little flat.

In fact, I saw her within the first thirty seconds of being there. My new little home, above the Spar grocery shop, was the first place I lived after leaving the wonderful nest I shared with my parents for twenty-five years.

It was quite by chance really. I was looking out the bathroom window and I spotted her in another block of flats down the road. It was a little too far away to see her face, but I could tell she was pretty.

It was the movement of her white dress that caught my eye when I first spotted her. She was dancing. Right there in her lounge.

And that girl could dance. She was so uninhibited. I mean she didn't know I was watching, but still.

I think she danced for PACT Ballet or something, because her movement was very fluid and she was obviously a professional.

I looked out of the window a number of times during the afternoon like a real pervert. I kept on looking, mainly because I am a typical male, but also because I have a thing for ballet dancers. And apparently, from what I can gather after a bit of self-diagnosis, I have certain voyeuristic tendencies to boot.

At that stage in my life, I hadn't figured out that I needed glasses for seeing at a distance and I thought everybody saw the world through a sheer silk cloth like I did. So I couldn't quite make out if she was as attractive as I thought she was.

I went to my parents' place for dinner later that afternoon. (Yes, I still went home for dinner with my folks, even though I lived in my own place. You did too, right?) While I was at my folks' house, I looked through some of my old stuff and found exactly what I was looking for. My grandpa's antique Boer War telescope. It was a small device wrapped in leather and it extended out to about a foot long.

It would do the trick.

I drove back to my flat, accompanied by a typical Transvaal storm, which was hammering Johannesburg with thunder and lightning.

I got home and – yes, you guessed it – I went straight to the window with the telescope to check out my lonely dancer.

She must have been inspired by the thunder and lightning because she was dancing across that floor, back and forth, like a woman possessed. Actually, she danced with such passion, it looked like she might rip herself apart.

I put the telescope to my eye.

I held my breath.

I closed one eye and tried to focus on her. All I saw was a blur of white. The telescope was so old it was almost impossible to focus.

I could hear a symphony in my head and everything was happening in slow motion as she slowly came into focus.

Now I saw her clearly. I looked up from the telescope, shaking my head in disbelief.

I could not believe my eyes.

Then I bent down and looked at her again.

The girl was not a dancer, although her moves were so incredibly balletlike. She was a white lace curtain, dancing in the Transvaal breeze.

(Soundtrack: ‘The Dambusters March' by Jethro Tull)

How come, when I was young, it always seemed like someone else's idea that got me into trouble?

And how come, when I was a kid, the word ‘consequences' had no meaning just before some extremely dangerous, dumb, downright stupid fun was about to be had?

And how come we were scared of getting into trouble with our parents for doing something wrong, but we still did it anyway? Just for the hell of it.

Things like playing tok-tokkie, making bombs out of HTH and chlorine, putting firecrackers in the fishpond, jamming potatoes in the next-door neighbour's exhaust pipe, creating home-made foefie slides and exploring caves created by erosion on mine dumps, even though mine dumps were made of cyanide! And let's not forget jumping off the double-decker bus just before your stop … for FUN.

One of my dumbest, bright-spark decisions was when Mark Campbell, may his dear soul rest in trouble-free peace, decided that it was a great idea to make a cannon.

Yes, a cannon.

Mark was a smart kid. At thirteen, he figured out how to make gunpowder. At fourteen, he figured out how to get his dumb next-door neighbour, namely me, to help him use the gunpowder to make said cannon.

We made gunpowder by emptying firecrackers, roman candles and skyrockets, then mixing the powder with firing-caps from an ammunition reloading hut at Huddle Park Firing Range, whose door just ‘happened' to be unlocked one time when we were there collecting bullet casings.

I should have learned not to trust Mark when he once talked me into stealing honey from a bloody beehive situated on the hill above Sylvia Pass.

The beehive was in a little cave on the path that the neighbourhood kids took up the hill on our way to playing war. Those bees were not that thrilled about us little bastards walking past every day and poking sticks and branches into their quaint little home. They particularly didn't like it when balloons filled with water were thrown into the hive.

One day, in his wisdom, Mark Campbell decided we needed to get honey out of the hive.

‘It's easy,' he said. ‘We'll make a chlorine bomb and stink the bees out.'

Chlorine bomb? Who knew how to make a chlorine bomb? Apparently Mark did. And who knew that we'd not only get stung but also berated and chased down the hill by Mr Little who owned the property? Obviously, bright spark here did not.

So, for some reason, even after the failure of his great beehive bonanza, I agreed to help Mark build a cannon.

So he got a piece of pipe from some building site up the road, plugged the bottom with lead and drilled a small hole with his dad's drill.

We called it the Gavelot, which I believe was a brand name of some small arms ammunition company. At least that's what he told me and, apparently, I believed everything he said.

We were ready.

Game on!

I have some choice words that aptly describe the responses I heard from adults shortly after the cannon incident. Idiot. Mampara. Bloody fool. Yes. That would be me.

So, once said device was ready, we prepared for the firing. We bright sparks got some cardboard and painted a red target on it. Actually we did a very good job making the target. Even Mark's sister said so.

Then we taped the target onto the garage door. Perfect.

Finally, we rolled a ball bearing down the barrel.

Mark got ready with the matches, while I proceeded to place my fingers in my ears and turn away from the cannon.

I closed my eyes and waited.

Nothing.

I opened my eyes and the firecracker fuse was smoking but not sparking like it should have been.

Mark handed me the matches. Good old Lion matches in the yellow box with the red writing. And here's the kicker. I actually took the matches from him!

I lit the fuse. Oh my God. It started sparking like crazy and I saw the flame snaking down the fuse towards the little hole. I ran like crazy. Mark bolted too. We were round the corner by the stone fences and …

Silence.

BOOOOOOMMM!

Holy shit.

Windows were shaking. Pigeons were taking off. The dog was barking and the word, ‘Hau,' came from the servants' quarters.

We rushed back to the cannon. It had fallen over and was smoking from both ends.

Mark checked the target. No holes. Damn. Missed entirely.

Then we saw it. A hole in the garage door right next to the target, and, unfortunately, on the other side of the door, a huge dent in the boot of Mark's father's car, parked inside the garage.

I think I'm still banned from the Campbell house.

(Soundtrack: ‘My Eyes Have Seen You' by The Doors)

I was a hopeless romantic when I was a young man. Actually I was more hopeless than romantic. Which has become painfully obvious in this book.

After I completed my two years of national service, I decided that I was going to write a novel.

Yes, a novel. Which I did indeed write but it was never published. Still have it in my files, mind you.

So I took myself off to Morgan Bay near East London, where my dad was born, and stayed at the Morgan Bay Hotel. It is a great spot, right on the beach. The weather was awful and I did more red-wine drinking than writing.

On the third day, I was sitting on my balcony and looking at the sea. I had my clunky portable typewriter. It was raining. The sea looked grey and depressing. So did my writing.

I ripped the paper out of my typewriter, crumpled it up and tossed it through the air. The paper ball arced easily across the deck into the rubbish bin, basketball style.

Score.

The only time I scored all day.

I looked at the ocean. The wooden railings that jailed the sea were a brilliant white against the dark water.

I sat back in my chair. That's when I saw her. She was running along the beach. Long red hair flowing in the wind.