Spud (35 page)

Today’s rehearsal was spot on, both onstage and off. I did a faultless Act One in the morning and then succeeded in avoiding Amanda without looking rude or foolish. During lunch, a pretty girl called Christine plonked herself down next to me and began crapping on about the last twelve years of her life. Finally, she asked me what I’d been up to. I shrugged and said, ‘Last night we had a seance in the chapel.’ Her eyes widened and then she burst into giggles and slapped me playfully on the leg. Her laughter stopped abruptly as she caught the icy stare of Amanda glaring down from the balcony above. Looks like the plan could be working. Gecko will be thrilled to hear about this one!

20:00   African Affairs was a real blast. The topic tonight was ‘Comedy as a tool for political change’. We watched a banned video of various comedians and satirists
taking the piss out of the Nationalist government and apartheid. One man called Pieter-Dirk Uys did such a brilliant impersonation of PW Botha that even Linton Austin managed a snuffling giggle before blowing his nose and regaining his composure.

11:00   Julian skipped around the house singing ‘Why don’t you fill me up buttercup…’ and handing out letters. I received a small white envelope. The handwriting was familiar but it wasn’t the Mermaid’s and I noticed that the letter had no stamp. I ran up to my bed before opening it.

After cancelling lunch with The Guv (because of too much work) I marched Gecko up to Hell’s View. I showed him the letter and filled him in on the unfolding events. He read the letter a number of times, whistled to himself and shook his head. He then held the letter up towards the sun (checking if it was counterfeit?) before reading it again. I asked him what he thought. He ignored me completely, pulled out a small notebook and jotted down some notes for about ten minutes. I became quite excited as it looked like Gecko was working out a complicated formula to solve my relationship problems. Unfortunately, all it amounted to was a short list of the positives and the negatives of my situation. I tried not to look disappointed as my girl guru read out his scribblings:

POSITIVES

The situation with the Mermaid is under control. (Could have fooled me!)
There are a number of women who like me. (And this is a positive?)
Amanda wouldn’t act like this if she didn’t have some feelings for me. (Feelings of malicious hatred and psychosis?)
This weekend is half-term so time is on my side. (It just gives me longer to agonise over it!)

NEGATIVES

I could have at least two girlfriends, maybe more. (More? This is worse than I thought, and where are the others hiding?)
Life is about to get dangerously complicated. (Life is already dangerously complicated!)
I will break at least one heart in the near future.
(Probably mine!)
The Mermaid is making a recovery (And this is a
negative?)
I have behaved like an asshole. (Thanks to my adviser!)

I folded the list in my diary and made a mental note to grill it in the prefects’ toaster. Unfortunately, while I was reading Gecko’s positives and negatives, he was busy scribbling out my way forward.

WAY FORWARD

Keep responding to the Mermaid in a friendly fashion.
Write a letter of apology to Amanda.
Play it cool with all other females.

These at least seemed reasonable. We agreed to keep monitoring the situation and, like two businessmen, we shook hands, put away our notes and strode down the mountain.

21:15   I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror. Long shaggy brown hair, greeny-brown, olive eyes. Small button nose, roundish face, skinny body. No muscles, no facial hair, no ball hair. God must be laughing at me.

14:30   Dr Zoo became incredibly excited when I told him about my recurring dream. He made me repeat the dream over and over while he paced around the office mumbling to himself in a language that sounded alarmingly like Vern’s cat talk. (Maybe Vern has consumed Dr Zoo’s mind.) Suddenly he smacked his thigh with delight and shouted something that sounded like ‘presto’ but wasn’t.

‘I have the answer, Milton,’ he said feverishly. ‘Or rather I have two answers!’ He licked his thin lips with
a pale pink tongue. He eyed me closely and then began. ‘This Mermaid women is part fish, yes?’ I shook my head and tried to correct him but it was hopeless.

‘She is the fish out of water. The water is your soul. Your soul is asking you to risk, to jump in. Mermaids are a symbol of childhood… of make believe. You are still holding onto your childhood, but your mother wants you to become a man, to take the great plunge into adulthood. You resist her, you jump but float… She jumps, knowing she will die. She dies to see her boy become a man. Such is the Oedipal link between the boy and his mother.’

I wanted to run, but the door was locked.

‘This other woman, Amanda, you say… that could be your own construction of your father. Your father is feminine because you undermine him. You weaken him in the continual struggle for your mother’s affections. The hamburger is a queer symbol, perhaps a symbol of material goods. Your father is buying your compliance, but should you accept that hamburger you will be ceding your mother to your father. The erotic link will be broken. It also foreshadows the Eve complex… Eve offers you the apple and with that one single action, she controls you. Your father is Eve and your mother is Adam. I don’t believe in God. I believe in Freud, Mr Milton.’

I nodded and mumbled pathetically, wishing I had the balls to stand up and tell this idiot what I thought of his theories and then march out the door never to return. After a long pause, Dr Zoo rose to his feet and strolled towards the window. He pulled the curtain aside slightly and stared out at the quad before beginning again.

‘There is of course another explanation.’ He turned to me and smiled warmly. I couldn’t help smiling politely back. ‘I can see that perhaps my Freudian analysis does not strike the key? How about this one then?’ He began to pace slowly again, staring at the floor and then now
and again lifting his gaze to me before lowering it once more.

‘You’re an adolescent boy who doesn’t know who he loves and what he wants. Your mind is awash with visions, dreams and metaphors. In the movies they seem to work things out so easily, but real life is a hell of a lot more complicated. The images are unimportant, the hamburger is just a hamburger, and the dream is just a dream.’

Now he was at the window again, peering out at Pissing Pete. ‘It’s okay to make mistakes, you know. It’s okay to experiment – nobody is going to hate a fourteen-year-old for two-timing his girlfriend. At least not for long. You’re too young to take your relationships so seriously – go out there, burn or be burned. If you don’t bite into Eve’s apple now, you may never get the chance again.’

I strolled along the old red brick cloisters back to the house with my head swimming with crazy thoughts. A prefect from another house told me my hair was a disgrace. I apologised and walked on to the safety of the dormitory.

06:40   PE with Mongrel again. True to form he ordered me to drop for forty press-ups because my hair hadn’t been cut. He seems to have forgotten that I have permission and he refused to read my note from Viking, which I now have to produce at least twice a day. (Have a suspicion that Mongrel can’t read.) We spent the lesson playing ‘stingers’ with a wet tennis ball. Basically, you chase someone and then hurl the ball at them as hard as you can and then that person gets a chance. All in all, a brainless game that leads to the small people getting hurt. Steven George had to be taken to the san when Simon nailed him in the goolies.

11:00   Another letter delivered by Julian in a bright red envelope. My heart now sinks every time he flits across the quad with his bundle. Once again the writing was foreign:

08:00   Emergency assembly. Word is that silly season has struck and somebody has landed in the deep you-know-what. The Glock strode in looking like a cold front and barked his way through a greeting and prayer. He then studied us morosely before beginning.

‘The Victoria Cross is a medal given for bravery on the field of battle. Some of our old boys have been awarded a VC, as is well known and documented in the archives.’

His voice darkened and became more strained. ‘Sadly, nowadays a VC is an activity where hoodlums take their clothes off and charge around an all female institution like barbarians. It isn’t an honour, it’s a disgrace! Last night I was awoken in the early hours by Sister Hillary, the sister superior at the St Eunice and All Saints Catholic Mission, to say that three of our boys were charging around her hostels, stark naked, barking out the school warcry. These hooligans then leapt on their bikes and rode off into the night like the cowards that they really are. School security reported that three boys on bikes were seen riding up the driveway at 04:30 this morning. Sister Hillary was extremely upset and told me personally that the job of creating virtuous women who live to serve God is not made any easier with rampaging naked adolescents charging through her hostels. Now I warned you about the silly season and I will stay true to my word. I will not have this school’s fine name sullied by a small group of hooligans!’

The Glock had worked himself up into a fever and thumped his fist into the lectern with just about every sentence. Then he paused and glared around again. This time a little smile escaped his lips.

‘Now, we know exactly who these three are. I am giving those boys until the end of the day to give themselves up. If not, they will be expelled tomorrow morning. Good day’

With that he was gone. The school broke out into a hum of murmuring. Nothing like a bit of excitement before half-term.

15:00   Back at Hell’s View, Gecko studied Christine’s letter. I could see that he was relishing the job of being my personal adviser. Although he has never had a relationship himself, he has read more than a couple of his sister’s Cosmopolitans so he judges himself well educated in matters of the heart. He also had the
privilege of that brief meeting with Elton John on the stairs. (Not great credentials, I admit, but still better than nothing.)

He looked up and whistled to himself as if he were surveying the devastation of some horrendous earthquake. ‘You’ve got trouble, Spuddy! Looks like you’ve got one too many eggs in your basket. And this Christine, she looks real feisty. My guess is that she’ll get you sooner rather than later.’

I told Gecko that the way I see it is that the major problem with me is that I don’t know what I want. I like them all and they are all so different. I was madly in love with the Mermaid until she went crackers and now she seems to be coming back to normal. Amanda is beautiful and mysterious and I dream about her… and now Christine…

My guru stood on the rock and gazed out over the valley. He turned to me and said, ‘Spuddy, as your adviser, I say go for it. Live for the moment and sort the rest out later. No regrets, mate. Carpe diem, seize the day. You never know when it will be your last!’

Long weekend

It feels like I just left home yesterday. The last month has flown. Another month and Oliver will be a thing of the past.

Mom and Dad are considering emigrating to Malta. I had to consult my atlas before discovering that Malta is a small island in the Mediterranean. More confirmation that my folks are a couple of loons! Dad is very much of the opinion that South Africa is about to explode.

Does everybody in Malta have a Maltese poodle?

Phone call from guess who… Christine invited me to a Saturday night beach braai with her friends. She told
me to bring a jersey and some marshmallows. I shook my head to decline the invitation. Unfortunately, while my head was shaking my mouth was saying ‘Thank you, that will be great!’ I sink ever further into the abyss!

Does one ever reach the bottom of the abyss? I guess I always knew it would be dodgy, right from the moment that a bright red BMW 740i roared up our driveway. I confess feeling embarrassed at the old station wagon (still without a rear window) standing under the tree it had once charged into. There was only one way that the evening would end. Christine was affectionate – very affectionate. Surprisingly, there were so many people there. Her brother, who is in matric, had invited his friends and everywhere you looked were crates of beer and bottles of booze. It was like something out of a surfing movie. I drank two beers and felt horribly drunk. I feebly blathered on about my girlfriend and other lame excuses, but before I knew it Christine was lying on top of me and her tongue was ripping around my mouth like a hungry eel. I wish I could say that I hated every minute of it but, dear diary, you know I could never lie to you.