Spud (9 page)

He looked at each one of us in turn and then said, ‘Something is wrong, very wrong. There is a mystery behind this that we must unravel. This man Macarthur was hanging from the ceiling for a reason. And nothing will stop me from finding the truth!’ In the candlelight Fatty’s eyes were flashing red, his jaw resolutely fixed. Nobody doubted his belief and commitment.

A long silence passed with all of us mesmerised by the candles and the story. Simon whistled and Rambo grunted. Mad Dog seemed to be deep in thought (although I’m not sure if that’s possible). Only Boggo remained cynical. With a defiant sniff, he said, ‘So what? The school hushed it up because it would look bad. What’s wrong with that?’

Now there was a gleam in Fatty’s eye and with the same deep whisper he said, ‘That’s right, Boggo. It would look bad, very bad. But perhaps they hushed it up because of the reasons behind the suicide.’

After another pause Gecko opened his mouth (quite out of character except when vomiting) and spoke for only the third time in a month. ‘What if it wasn’t suicide? What if he was murdered?’ There was a snort of mocking laughter and Rambo, Simon and Boggo all jeered at him and told him to grow up.

More stony silence followed until Mad Dog said, ‘He would have needed a ladder or somebody to help him. Or maybe he came in through the roof.’

‘No mention of that in the archives,’ said Fatty. ‘In fact there’s nothing in the Guardian newspaper’s archives either. More black holes and missing pages. Either the newspaper didn’t run a story or the records have been hidden.’

‘But why would the newspaper cover it up?’ asked Boggo. ‘They love giving the school a good grilling.’

‘Because,’ said Fatty, ‘my research into the Guardian newspaper archives has revealed a crucial piece of information.’ He paused and took a huge bite of what looked like sponge cake and then chewed slowly, all the while glancing around the room as if he half expected Macarthur’s ghost to suddenly appear out of the walls.

‘Hurry up, Fatso, what’s the beef?’ spat Rambo angrily.

‘The beef is,’ said Fatty, spitting a few chunks of sponge cake onto his duvet cover, ‘the beef is that the editor of the Guardian from 1936 to 1952 was none other than Ron Walsh, old boy and, coincidentally, head of the board of governors from 1942 to ‘44!’ I felt myself gasp as the conspiracy became more real in my mind. Was it possible for a bunch of first years to stumble onto something so huge?

‘So how do we find out about Macarthur’s suicide then?’ cried Simon with eyes as wide as saucers. ‘Surely there must be a way to solve this thing?’

Fatty nodded solemnly and promised to keep hunting until he’d solved the mystery. He said he would search the archives of the Durban newspapers over the long weekend and try to snoop around for relatives, friends and other informants. Fatty leaned forward and brought us all to silence.

‘Not a word of this conversation leaves this dormitory’ We all mumbled and nodded in agreement. With a blow
of Fatty’s foul breath the flames from the candles were gone and the meeting was over.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark! (But who really cares anyway – tomorrow I’m going home!)

I dreamed I was swinging by a rope in chapel watching Reverend Bishop delivering his sermon. Suddenly I was spotted and then everybody was laughing at me. Boys, teachers… even The Glock. I’m not dead; I’m just swinging from a rope without any pants on. They’re all pointing, laughing and jeering because I’m a spud.

Long weekend

11:00   Hundreds of luxury cars lined Pilgrim’s Walk. Under the trees to the left of the driveway were two old smoky buses that looked older than Crispo. I boarded the Durban bus and through the dusty window I saw Rambo being hugged by a strong-looking man with a shaved head. The two of them then jumped into a green sports car and sped away. I sat next to Fatty (and nearly fell off the tiny edge of the seat that was left). The 158 kilometre journey seemed endless. Fatty fell asleep and breathed fish paste breath all over me. I didn’t mind because I was going home, but made a mental note not to sit next to him on the trip back to school on Monday.

Mom picked me up at the Westville shopping centre looking hot and bothered and not at all pleased to see me. She said Dad was being impossible and had charged off to buy guns. She reckoned his fear of communists was excessive even by apartheid standards. When I arrived home I could see that Mom wasn’t exaggerating. Dad has converted our house into an army bunker. The garden fence is now barbed wire. The gates are ten feet
high and every window and door has been barricaded up with wooden planks. Dad has enforced a strict lights out rule from sunset to sunrise. (When else do you use lights?) Inside the house, hundreds of candles flickered, making the place look like a palm reading centre. Dad reckons the first thing the terrorists will go for is your electricity.

It took ages for us to clamber up the ladder and squeeze my bags down through the trapdoor in the roof. Mom kept shaking her head and mumbling under her breath about madness following her wherever she went. We then struggled down another ladder and found ourselves in my parents’ bathroom which had a burning gas lamp perched on the toilet cistern.

Seated at the dining room table, my father was furiously trying to put together the pieces of his new rifle, which he had just taken apart. In the dim candlelight he looked terrible. Unwashed hair, thick stubble, creased clothes and a mad look in his eyes. I suspect he failed to recognise me because he looked up at me, nodded vaguely and said, ‘Howzit, Bob,’ before returning to his gun.

Besides all the weirdness it was good to be home, to enjoy some peace with no sirens and bells ringing every half hour. This peace was unfortunately shattered a little after four when Mom ordered Dad to clean himself up and stop behaving like an idiot. My mother’s book club was arriving at 19:00 and she wanted my father to take the planks off the doors so that her guests wouldn’t have to clamber onto the roof and into the toilet to get into the house. Dad sensed that he was on the brink of losing the argument and ran into the bathroom and locked the door. Mom continued shouting vile obscenities at him through it, but my father stayed silent, defiantly refusing to retaliate.

18:50   Dad took the security planks off the doors and lounge windows, but refused to clean himself up. He
announced that we’re now vulnerable to attack and spent the rest of the evening stalking around the garden dressed in his old army clobber with his new rifle at the ready. I went out to join him for a chat and found him leopard crawling near the hedge, listening in on a conversation that some people were having on the road. After a while Dad stood up and said it was just a couple of maids talking about bus times. Dad and I chatted about various intelligence techniques he’d learned in the army. (Dad was a deadly soldier and rose up all the way through the ranks to the level of private.) I asked him if his gun would still fire, considering that there were three pieces of it lying on the dining room table. Dad said it was the intimidation factor that was crucial when facing terrorists. He gave me a lecture on survival as he heated up a can of baked beans on a gas burner in the bushes. He reckons we’ll all have to learn to live off the land when the country goes up in smoke. After twenty minutes of trying to take the lid off the can with a butter knife and even his teeth, he gave up and stomped off to the kitchen to fetch the tin-opener.

19:00   My mother’s book club cronies filed in, each trying to talk louder than the next. Mom had me serving drinks (a full-time job). Every time I entered with more drinks the room went quiet and then as I left the raucous conversations flared up again. (As if I didn’t know they were talking about their husbands and sex.)

I entered the lounge for about the twelfth time carrying a tray of drinks when suddenly I was struck dumb by a sight so lovely, so… unreal, that I very nearly lost control of the tray. Standing before me was a mermaid (without a fishtail), a girl so beautiful that a sharp pang shot through my body and made my left leg go numb.

‘Johnny, this is Marge’s daughter Debbie.’ The introduction came from my mother, but her voice sounded
miles away. This creature with big green eyes, golden skin, and long wispy blonde hair smiled at me with perfectly shaped gleaming white teeth and said one word that nearly flattened me with its beauty.

‘Hi.’

‘Jean, I promised Debs a swim in your pool, if that’s all right,’ said Marge to my mother. My mother swung her hands wildly and whiskey sloshed over the side of her glass. ‘Of course. Johnny, get Debbie a towel and show her the pool.’ I gulped, trying desperately not to look at the creature standing opposite me. I could feel my cheeks flush and knew that my face was as red as a stop sign. Eventually, I mumbled something and the creature skipped off to my room to change. The thought of her taking her clothes off in my room made me feel weak. I remembered that my planes and trains underpants were lying on the floor in full view. I felt nauseous. I wished I had a video camera in my room to record the moment forever, just to prove it actually happened. (Besides I could probably make a fortune peddling the tape to Boggo.)

I took ages to choose the right towel for Debbie and then I waited in the passage for her arrival in a complete state of terror. I didn’t have to wait long. She skipped past me, yanked the wrong towel from my hands and slipped through the back door and into the pool before I had time to move or think or even pinch myself.

‘Come on, Johnny, it’s warm,’ she giggled, and splashed me with water. I did the only thing a thirteen-year-old boy could do in such a situation and that was attempt a very macho Olympic dive. What followed was a catastrophic bellyflop (a groin flop would be more specific). I sank to the bottom of the pool where I let out a howling scream of agony bubbles. I took my time floating to the surface – and there she was. The Mermaid. Staring at me with her enormous green eyes. And then… laughter, the sound of angels. She was
laughing at me, but not with the cruel laughter of school. This laughter seemed beautiful and soft and warm, like the sound of a flute. Then I was laughing too, and the world was spinning and for once this wasn’t a dream. I would not suddenly wake up in a cramped little cubicle with a siren screeching in my ears. I was home.

06:00   Mom woke me up and said I had to search the garden for Dad.

Found Dad sleeping in some shrubs at the bottom of the garden. Around him were two empty wine bottles and a Kentucky Fried Chicken packet filled with bones. (Not sure if wine and Kentucky qualify as living off the land?)

Mom threw a bucket of water over him and ordered him to bath. After disentangling himself from the shrubbery Dad loped off to the house shaking his head and talking to himself.

I went back to bed and tried to remember every detail of last night. Unfortunately, it all seems a blur. I struggled to remember the Mermaid’s face. I must be in love. (Haven’t felt like this since the morning after Pretty Woman.)

Spent the afternoon watching the cricket on TV. Unfortunately, because of apartheid, we don’t play international cricket (sometimes rebel sides come out and play against us, but it’s not the real thing). Today it’s Transvaal against Western Province, but it’s a four-day game so everything happens really slowly. Dad joined me, looking surprisingly normal again. He said he was sorry for his behaviour and mumbled on about being under stress.

Our family is going out to dinner. (No doubt my father’s trying to prove his sanity to us.) Mom looked far happier and even kissed Dad before we left.

We arrived at a steakhouse called Mike’s Kitchen.
Dad announced that from now on he’s going to try to give black people a chance, and attempted to talk to our waiter in pigeon Zulu. Unfortunately, our waiter was a dark looking Indian who grunted angrily and then stormed off never to be seen again.

I tried to casually slip the Mermaid into the conversation, but as soon as I did my parents winked at each other and my mother said, ‘I think our little Johnny has a crush.’ I felt myself blushing and was about to change the subject when to my horror I realised that the dreaded Pike was sitting at the far side of the restaurant with his parents and his younger brother (who looks just as ugly). I pretended to ignore the monster and buried my head in the menu.

Halfway through our meal I looked up to find Pike standing at our table with a wicked grin on his face. Here follows the conversation:

With that he sauntered back to his table. My folks commented on what a nice friend I had made. I bit my lip and said nothing – school is still two days away, and two days is ages.

Innocence is back. She gave me a smooch on the lips when she arrived and ordered Dad to carry her suitcase to her room. Dad made a funny noise and then obeyed. It seems that Innocence, with the law behind her, is now in some sort of position of power around the house. Mom and Dad have decided to bide their time until they catch her in the act of brothelling and then fire her once and for all. I’m glad she’s back and hope she sticks to the rules – after all, she did carry me around on her back for the first four years of my life.

12:30   Lunch with Wombat, my mother’s mother and my father’s nemesis. For some unknown reason she insisted on calling my father Roy and me David. Every ten minutes or so she would point at me and tell my mother how handsome I was, and that thankfully I didn’t look anything like my father. Dad, who was taking ages to light the braai, whistled loudly to himself.