Blind Date at a Funeral (5 page)

He caught two more fish. One on his line and one on mine, which I refused to reel in.

Soon after he caught the last fish, we packed up and got ready to go home. Before we left, nature called and my father disappeared into the bushes for a few minutes.

Wanting to take another look at the fish, I opened the chest and peeked in. All three fish were lying on the bottom, their silver scales glinting in the late afternoon sun. I closed the chest and sat on it. I gazed out at the river. It was a crimson-tinted mirror in the setting sun. It was hard to believe that hundreds of fish were swimming around under that mirror. I wondered if our fish had brothers or sisters.

I stood up, opened the chest again, grabbed one of the fish and ran down to the water's edge. I threw the fish as far as I possibly could. I watched it tumble through the air and shatter the river as it broke the surface. Then I ran back, grabbed the other two fish and threw them into the water too.

‘What was that?' said my father as he pushed through the bushes. I looked at the river without answering. He followed my gaze, his eyes finally resting on the three fish floating on the surface.

He didn't say anything.

He picked up the chairs and fishing rods and walked towards the car. ‘Do me a favour, my boy,' he said, over his shoulder, ‘please go and rinse the chest in the river.'

I took the chest down to the water. I dipped it into the river and scooped up some water. I stood up. The fish were still floating on the surface. I picked up the chest and ran back up the bank towards my father. Just before we got to the trees, I turned and took one more look at the river.

A sudden movement caught my eye. There was a ripple around the fish. I held my breath. Slowly, one of the fish rolled over and with a lazy flap of its fin disappeared under the surface. Within a few seconds the other fish followed. Then the ripples were gone and the lake became a mirror again.

My dad came up behind me and rested his hand on my shoulder.

‘You okay?' he said.

‘I'm not sure,' I replied, on the verge of tears. ‘I kind of feel bad.'

‘Feel bad for those fish, huh?' he said.

‘No,' I said, ‘I feel bad about disappointing you, Dad.'

‘Ag shame, boytjie. You didn't disappoint me,' he said, ruffling my hair. ‘I'm not that crazy about fishing myself. I actually hate taking the hook out of the fish's mouth. Ugh.'

‘Ugh,' I repeated.

He put his arm around me and we walked back to the car together.

(Soundtrack: ‘Breaking Up Is Hard to Do' by Neil Sedaka)

I was eighteen years old at the time. It was a rainy night and I broke up with her right outside Charlie C's steakhouse in Orange Grove.

I told her I wanted to do my compulsory army stint without having to worry about someone at home. To be honest, I was such a coward. I didn't have the guts to tell her that even though she was really pretty, I did not seem to connect with her on a heart level. My dad said I was suffering from Emotional Constipation. I did not know what he meant. I still don't.

I really liked her though. I remember the hours I spent watching her sun­ bathing from next door, through the small window in my friend's basement.

She'd be sitting on her beach towel on the back lawn, listening to LM Radio on her transistor wireless.

The window was high up and we'd jump and pull ourselves up to it. I'd almost die as I clung to the windowsill, watching her rub suntan oil on her legs. I'd watch until my knuckles turned white and I just couldn't hold on any more. Then I'd drop to the basement floor, swing my arms around until the circulation returned, and then pull myself up to the window again.

I really liked her. It took ages for me to talk her into going to a movie with me.

It must have been the thrill of the chase, because after dating for a few months, I broke up with her.

Just like that!

Love is a strange thing. I think I was more in love with the idea of being in love than feeling actual love itself.

She moved away a few months after that and I eventually moved to the United States.

I never saw her again.

Not until a visit to South Africa twenty-nine years later.

It was a Sunday morning and I was having coffee just down the road from where I'd ditched her. I recognised her immediately. She was the same. Just older.

My stomach tightened and I got a little light-headed. Just like I used to at the basement window. I kept my head down in case she recognised me.

I sneaked a look around for the waiter. I needed my bill. Time to get out of there. I was embarrassed. I actually felt bad about what I had done.

She folded her newspaper.

I dropped my head even lower.

She stood up and slowly put on her coat. Too slowly. Then she picked up her purse.

I studied the foam in the bottom of my mug.

She paid the waitress. Then she headed towards the door. And me.

I peered even closer at the foam in the bottom of my cup. I wondered if you could read foam like some people read tea leaves.

Her legs appeared in the top left-hand corner of my field of vision and disappeared as she walked by.

I closed my eyes. Waited for a few seconds in my own darkness. Then opened them again.

Oh crap. The shoes were back.

I looked up.

‘I thought it was you,' she said, smiling, as though I had never broken her heart.

I braced myself for the onslaught.

‘My God, you haven't changed a bit,' she said, still smiling. ‘I can't believe it's you. How've you been?'

‘Ag, I'm doing lekker,' I said. ‘I can't complain. I live in the United States now. In Austin, Texas.'

‘I heard,' she said.

‘Yeah. I've been away for quite a long time.'

She smiled.

‘What have you been up to?' I asked.

‘I own a little shop in Malvern,' she said. ‘Antiques. You know. That kind of thing.'

‘That's nice,' I said. ‘I'm still writing silly little stories,' I said.

‘Ja, I know. I've read some of the stories you've posted.'

She sat down, reached out and took my hand. I was in luck. She had a wedding ring on and apparently she'd forgotten what an a-hole I had been.

I smiled. Sat back in my seat and shook my head. My ego peeked out from behind my brain and was about to make itself available for stroking when she hesitated and cocked her head.

My heart stopped.

A cocked head, that slight tilt to the left. That's always a bad sign in my books. She was going to let me have it. I just knew it.

My ego scuttled back into the darkness, leaving me to face the music alone.

‘I'm cross with you,' she said, looking me dead in the eye.

I shrugged my shoulders. There was nothing else to do. I was guilty.

‘The girl in that story,' she said. ‘The one you ditched outside Charlie C's. That was me, right?'

I nodded.

‘You said I didn't like kissing. Well, let me tell you, it's no fun to kiss someone who is trying to shove his or her tongue down your throat. Then you had the audacity to say that it was me who wasn't a great kisser. Why'd you say that?'

‘Emotional Constipation?' I mumbled, shrugging my shoulders. I did not know what the hell else to say.

‘Now I remember why I dumped you,' she said, smiling. She reached across and ruffled my hair as she got up. ‘Sometimes you just don't make any sense.'

(Soundtrack: ‘Naked' by Celine Dion)

The woman was totally nude. Naked as the day she was born.

She was beautiful. She was thirty years old. And she was right there, in her birthday suit, in my mom's secluded little garden.

It was a gorgeous summer day in Johannesburg.

‘Where do you want me to stand?' she said in a husky, sexy voice.

I was not sure where I wanted her to stand. I was disorientated, discombobulated and distracted. All I cared about, at that moment, was how to stop my highly charged sixteen-year-old self from getting aroused.

To turn myself off, I tried to visualise my grumpy, old maths teacher without any clothes on. That didn't work at all. I mean, how can you think of anything else when there is a voluptuous, fully grown, awfully attractive nude three feet away from you?

‘How about this?' she said, placing one foot forward and covering her crotch with her hands.

‘Err, ja,' I said, looking through the viewfinder. My hands were trembling.

‘I want it to look innocent,' she said.

Innocent! Oh my God. Innocence was the last thing present in that garden.

‘Or maybe like this.' She covered her breasts with one arm and covered her lower area with the other hand. I pressed the shutter and then wound the camera to advance the film. It was the days before digital cameras and I was an aspiring photographer. I did not have a darkroom so I developed and printed pictures in the kitchen, at night, after everyone went to bed.

I was so consumed with photography that I almost failed Standard 9. Especially when plum assignments like taking nude pictures presented themselves. Not that this was an ongoing occurrence. On the contrary, it only happened that one time in my life. Selfies included.

The woman was the daughter of a friend of my mother's. She was a massage therapist. She was from a very liberal family and my mom was a hippy. Together they decided that I should take some pictures of the woman in the nude.

The whole situation came about after I won some award or another at school for some pictures I had taken of the first rowing team in action. I don't know how my mother and the woman came to their conclusion, but somehow they found a link between a woman in a birthday suit and a team of guys in a rowing boat.

I thought it was a brilliant idea, of course, but the concept was fraught with problems.

Firstly, people in South Africa, in those days, got thrown into jail for having a
Playboy
magazine. It was considered porn. If the guys from
Squad Cars
had got wind of it, I might have been arrested and had a sojourn at John Vorster Square. I can only imagine how frantic the men from the Censor Board would be today with all the Internet porn.

The second major problem with a full-nude film shoot was my pants. Well, not my pants per se, but the inhabitant of my pants. As one might expect, I was a typical, dumb, testosterone-filled teenager with absolutely no control over my privates. In other words, nothing but girls and sex filled my little pea brain.

It was very difficult to take pictures and remain un-aroused at the same time. In fact it was almost impossible. It was just like an Ouma rusk and a nice cup of coffee. They just go together. I was petrified that she was going to look at my crotch and burst out laughing.

Our domestic worker appeared from around the corner, carrying a silver tray adorned with tea and biscuits.

‘Hau!' she uttered with wide eyes, and promptly turned around and scurried back into the house.

Luckily I managed to finish the photo shoot without being discovered.

The nude lady thanked me and covered herself with a towel. As she was on her way inside, she turned and said, ‘Is your back sore, or something?'

‘No. Why?' I asked.

‘Because you've been kind of walking funny,' she said. ‘Like bent over, almost. You should come in for a treatment sometime.'