Daddy Long Legs (8 page)

Eventually he fell into a fitful and restless sleep on the couch. The TV buzzing in the dark. He dreamt of dark serial killers. And the most beautiful girl in all of the world. A lost precious girl. A dead girl. Called Sasha.

Prostitutes were dying.

Dead bodies were showing up everywhere. And no-one gave a damn.

Wayne Human was dreaming about dead prostitutes. A time in his life more than seven years before.

Wayne Human was dreaming about the love of his life. A dead girl. Called Sasha.             

His greatest joy.

His greatest sadness.

And his deepest darkness.

Her name was Sasha. And their time together would be brief.

Far too brief.

Far too ...

A few months after her death a colleague introduced him to a girl called Magda. Six months later they were married.

That was then and this is now.

Some things are separated by barriers greater than time and space.

***

On the morning after the humiliating encounter with his wife, Wayne Human was woken up on his couch by the persistent ringing of his cell phone.

Something terrible had happened in a little town in the Northern Cape. A place called Hope. A spectre from the past had resurfaced.

A plane ticket and accommodation had been arranged. He was to fly to Kimberley that night.

That was then.

And this is now.

On top of a little hill overlooking Hope, a group of people gathered around a six-feet hole. All around them, a cold wind whispered ugly rumours through winter-stripped trees while the drowsy town beneath sleepwalked through yet another day.

Kyle stood motionless as he watched the mechanical device lower the last remains of his mother into the cold earth. To his right, someone sobbed quietly.
Tannie
Koekie, Kyle thought to himself. His mother’s closest friend. His mother’s
only
friend. Kyle wasn’t surprised. Stern and aloof. Judgemental and surly. His mother was hardly a people magnet. The tiny group of people that now crowded her last resting place was testament to that.

Kyle surreptitiously surveyed the small cluster of people that had made the effort to attend the dreary ceremony. They were all elderly. His mother’s age. People who had known better times. In another country, so different to this one. They had been ostensibly friendly to Kyle. Courteous. Yet, he couldn’t deny that there was a latent hostility. A quiet condemnation. Sometimes it was implicit. And at other times almost palpable. They still blamed him. After all these years they
still
blamed him.
Un-fucking-believable
! Kyle could hardly believe it. The town of Hope may have been small. But its memory was huge. Gargantuan.

Two days before, Kyle had cruised into Hope. And found a place that had been radically transformed by the years. This was no longer the town of his youth. Sure. Corruption was endemic. Incompetence and ineptitude characterised the civil administrations of many municipalities, especially in the rural areas. Yet nothing could have prepared Kyle for what he saw when he entered Hope. The buildings and premises that flanked Wide Street, Hope’s main artery, were all in various states of decay and dereliction. What had, in his youth, been the business centre of Hope was now a collection of shabby and dirty buildings. The pavements were littered with garbage and Wide Street (Hope’s only tarred road) was marked with potholes and cracks. And everywhere, the streets were crowded with the unemployed. And the indigent.

At the town’s undertaker he found his mother’s embalmed corpse in a cheap plywood coffin. The beak of her nose. The drawn gauntness of her cheeks. Her sunken eyes. Everything seemed to project one last recrimination at her eldest – and last remaining – son.

Over the ensuing two days, with the saintly help of
tannie
Koekie, Kyle had finalised all the funeral arrangements. And so, with a signature here ... an EFT there ... and a handshake to round it off, an entire life had been concluded. Terminated. And forever consigned to that ethereal thing we call memory. The bitter and reproachful presence that had been his mother was dead. Long live Elsa Jane Devlin.

Now, atop the little hill overlooking a sleepy Hope, Kyle watched as the coffin sank into the earth.

Then finally, to Kyle’s great relief, the last clod had been strewn. The last verse had been read. The last prayer had been chanted. And it was all over. An awkward and bitter bundle of a woman was now forever consigned to the hard soil of Hope. His mother was dead. Yet her stern visage would forever haunt his thoughts.

Kyle remembered the last time he had visited her. The
only
time he had visited her. The only time since his hasty departure from the town of his youth, more than a decade before. He had rung the doorbell with trepidation. A clouded anxiety that had proven more than justified. Because when she had opened the door, she had stood there, silent and barren. There had been no greeting. No happy motherly smile to welcome back her son. She had stood and looked at him as if he had merely gone to the local shop. As if he had been gone a few hours. Not ten years. On the other side of South Africa. And then the simple words. ‘Come in.’ It wasn’t an invitation. It was an acknowledgement. Almost ... a grudging acquiescence.

They sat around the kitchen table with its tattered linoleum. Trying desperately to make conversation. At least Kyle was trying. He told her about his life in Johannesburg. His successes. His triumphs. A film crew had done a segment on one of his TV ads. He tried to impress her. To make her proud of him. But her hazy eyes and the far-away look on her face told him that she was barely listening. They spoke. Haltingly. And awkwardly about the town. About South Africa. About the things that had changed since their last meeting. But all the time a dead boy hung like an exclamation mark over their conversation. And something else. The unspoken accusation. Kyle hated little towns with big memories. He had planned to stay the weekend. But later that same day he had headed back to Joburg. Relieved. Disappointed. His mother always managed to evoke in him a mad, confused swirl of conflicting emotions. Damn!

One by one the small group of mourners filed past Kyle. Commiserating. Nodding. With muted interest Kyle noted which of the mourners avoided making eye contact.

Little towns
.
Man!

And then it was just he and
tannie
Koekie. Alone around the hole that was being gradually filled with soil by two black workers wearing blue overalls. A few minutes later, they were sitting around
tannie
Koekie’s kitchen table, eating cake and drinking
Rooibos
tea. They spoke, as old acquaintances always do, about the old days. About how things had changed. And how they had stayed the same.

Eventually Kyle made his excuses and left, careful to conceal his growing restlessness. Since early that morning an itch had been growing. And unless he scratched right away, there would be no telling where he would end up. Less than five minutes later Kyle pulled up outside one of Hope’s two bottle stores. It was the one closer to the Coloured township. Frequented mostly by the residents of that township. He didn’t need any of the town’s white residents to see him enter a liquor store. There was enough reason for them to despise him. And although he didn’t live there anymore. Although he would be gone by the following morning, somehow ... he still cared what they thought. Moments later he stepped out with a case of Windhoek Lager, a bottle of Glen Grant’s Whiskey, two bottles of Schweppes soda water and a large bag of ice.

And then his phone rang. It was Angelique. He stared at her name on the cell phone screen for what seemed like ages before he answered. ‘Hello Angelique.’ He tried to keep his voice as emotionless as possible. He tried to sound as cool and distant as possible. But even to himself his voice sounded strained. And tight.

There was a hesitation on her end. ‘Kyle?’ He said nothing. Regretting that he had answered. ‘Kyle. I’m so sorry. I heard ... about your mom. Oh God, I’m so sorry. I am so sorry.’ Hiding amongst her words the unstated implication. I dumped your ass. Your career wiped out. And now your mother dies. You poor pathetic bastard.

Kyle felt the sun bake down on his neck. People stared at him. Balancing the case of beers and the bottle and the bag of ice awkwardly. ‘Yes.’ What else could he say? What else was there to say.

‘Kyle, are you okay?’

‘I’m good.’ He had been dreaming of this moment for so long. Thinking of all the things he would say. All the hurtful comments he would make. And here he was. As ineffectual as ever. In the face of her cool and clipped words. As ineffectual ... and insipid as ever. How dare he assume that she could ever be his? ‘I have to go, Angelique.’ He killed the call. If he had lacked a reason to get slaughtered that day, he had just found it. Not that he really needed an excuse.

He headed straight for the guest house. He could, of course, have stayed in his dead mother’s house. The house of his youth. But that wasn’t even an option. Too many memories there. Way too many awful and unexorcised memories. No. He wanted nothing to do with the dreary and plain house. Just after noon of that day, blearily watching the little 54cm colour television in his room, Kyle had finished two six-packs and two-thirds of the scotch. The rest of the day was a blur. To put it mildly.

The next morning, as the sun burnt a slow finger across his face, Kyle awoke with a start. For a split second, his head thick with hangover mist, Kyle didn’t know where he was. And then. The previous night’s drinking. The funeral. His mother’s death. The call. And his entire miserable life came into sharp focus. Kyle fell onto the bed. Groaning. Wishing he didn’t have to wake up. Wishing he didn’t have to face the day.

For a few minutes he lay in a dishevelled heap. Dark thoughts whirling about his milky mind. Unpleasant memories racing through dusty aching corners. Wanting nothing more than not to exist at all. Or at the very least, an easy painless way out.

Out.

And then. Like a lightning bolt through a cloudy sky. An epiphany. So bright. And beautiful. So simple. And brilliant. He wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before.

He would change. Yes. He would change everything.

Everything.

He would sell the house. Quit Davis Corke. Even leave Johannesburg. Maybe go to Cape Town. Or even the Wild Coast. Why not? It was his life.
And it needed some serious changin’, mama
.

Yes. He would change. Maybe even leave advertising. And finish that book he had always wanted to write. Yes.

And so. With renewed vigour. And a new goal. And a new vision. Kyle jumped out of bed and ran into the shower. As the warm water washed the bleariness from his mind, his head swam with wild vivid images of a new life. A new purpose. And yes. Of course. A new love. Yes, a new love!
Honestly
. What else was life good for? If not that.

In the mirror Kyle stared at himself with growing intensity and became so excited he almost choked on the lemon menthol toothpaste. Rushing about this room he collected all his belongings and hurriedly stuffed them in his suitcase. At the front desk he tapped on the counter with impatience as the manager slowly settled his bill. And then he was outside. Eager to make his escape. And get the hell out of this town. As he cruised out of the grounds of the guesthouse he spotted one of the employees and told him to grab the remaining booze in his room before the manager got his hands on it. Smiling from ear to ear the old Coloured man sprinted inside.

Kyle drove slowly through the meandering main street of Hope. Glad that he would soon call this place history.

He stopped only for cigarettes. In the middle of the sidewalk Kyle paused. And looked around. Taking in the dirty, litter-strewn streets for the last time. Glad to finally wave this place goodbye.

Good riddance.
He felt like standing in the middle of Wide Road and flipping the bird to the entire town.

If he had taken the time or the effort to look closely he would have noticed that there was something different about Hope that morning. Something gloomy. And electric. As if a dark thundercloud had descended over the little hamlet. Everywhere little groups of people were clustered. Whispering. And gesticulating.

But Kyle was too relieved at leaving to notice. He walked slowly to his car. Oblivious. He was about to climb in. When his entire world collapsed into a dirty little heap.

Shocked. And awe-struck. He reeled back. His heel struck the hard edge of something. And he fell onto the pavement. Across the road, a group of Coloured men laughed and heckled. A woman steered her son clear of the ‘drunk’ white man and stared back at him with disgust. Inside the bank, one of the tellers looked on with concern.

Heedless of the stares. And without bothering to rise from the dirty sidewalk. Kyle stared in a daze at the newspaper headline. Under his breath he groaned in bitter dismay.

The posters for that morning’s edition of the
Hope Gazette
had been plastered all over the place. Its headline screamed five words only.

DADDY LONG LEGS IS BACK!