I Heart Beat (8 page)

I'M SITTING AT the dining-room table looking at the seven plates of food in front of me. There's rice, potatoes, beans, sweet potato, avocado pear, beetroot, and the last plate has a big steak.

This is called Lunch on the diet schedule. On the top of the diet sheet it says The Schedule!

I've already had two other meals called Breakfast and Mid-Morning Snack. And the two peanut butter sandwiches I sneaked after swimming with Toffie in the morning. Toffie says I mustn't tell Grummer. She'll freak if she knows I've been cheating The Schedule! I tell him I'm sorted. I did a mini-puke straight after, so she won't know.

Grummer's become the guardian of The Schedule! She arranges her “To Do” list around every eating slot: she has her walk in the morning and then we listen to classical music and eat Breakfast. She goes to Pastor Aitch for a prayer session with the bereaved support group. Then she has tea on the veranda and watches the birds, and I have Mid-Morning Snack. Then she knits some squares for my blanket. (She's already knitted twelve squares and has 128 to go.) Then we eat Lunch. Then she reads her novel and after Mid-Afternoon Snack she has a session with Mr du Plooy to discuss what he's done to the garden. Or she goes to the fund-raising meeting for the Die Trein crèche. Then she has her evening walk and we have Supper. She watches her soap and then gives me Evening Snack and the protein supplement drink.

We are on day three of The Schedule! Grummer sits opposite the dining-room table watching me eat Lunch. I look at the steak and shake my head. I don't do flesh.

Grummer says I do now; otherwise she'll telephone Dr Pete. I tell her I don't do flesh and she heads for the phone. They chatter for a long time, and Grummer sighs a lot. She called him yesterday about the chicken and the day before about the fish.

Bingo! I must put him on speed dial.

Grummer comes back and says I can leave the steak. Dr Pete says we'll talk about “the meat issue” at my session tomorrow. I can't wait.

Mr du Plooy's loitering at the doorway, and Grummer invites him in. He sits down at the table, and Grummer feeds him my steak. He gets bits stuck in his teeth and I leave the table to go and floss. I can hear them talking.

“She's a very sick little girl,” Grummer says to Mr du Plooy.

Mr du Plooy says all I need is a big klap on the bum.

Grummer says, “Oh no, Karel, not a smack.”

And Karel, aka Mr du Plooy, says to Grummer, “What she needs, Mavis,” — yes, he calls her Mavis — “is a lot of klaps. You should give her one every morning with her breakfast. That'll soon get her head straight.”

And Grummer says, “Derek (my late husband) and I always agreed we would never hit a child. I don't think Beatrice's mother ever had a smack in her life.”

And Mr du Plooy says that maybe if Grummer had klapped Mom she wouldn't have turned out the way she has.

I come back into the room with squeaky teeth just as they're starting to shout and Mr du Plooy leaves soon after.

“That man is impossible,” Grummer says and she reaches for her tissues.

I've made a list of all the things I like about Grummer. It's got three items on it and I add a fourth. The list goes like this:

The list of twenty-nine things that I don't like about Grummer ends with “Grummer keeps on dropping her snotty tissues all over the house”, which freaks me out.

I pick up a tissue off the floor and give it to Grummer. She says she wants to show me what Mr du Plooy's been doing with the garden. There are three men digging a bed on the side. They stand on their spades as they try to break through the hard ground.

Grummer says she took my advice about focusing on the people still living who would be affected by the changes she wanted to make to the garden.

“You're such a wise, wise girl,” Grummer says and gives me a squeeze. I pull in my tummy, so she can't feel the peanut butter sandwiches.

“I hope your grandfather understands the compromises I've made,” Grummer says. “But he's gone now and Mr September is still alive.”

There's an orchard of trees at the bottom of the garden. Some of the more sickly quinces have been removed to make way for new quince trees.

“So, you see, Beatrice, Mr September still has his quince trees. And every time he sees a quince, he will be able to see and remember his late wife,” Grummer says.

I look at the rotten fruit on the quince trees and hope Mrs September doesn't mind having bugs and bees crawling all over her.

Mr du Plooy's knocked down two of the shacks and left one of them standing, which he's going to convert into a gazebo.

“So Mr September can sit here sometimes and remember the days when they used to live here. Before they were forced to leave their home,” Grummer says.

Mr du Plooy's laid out a vegetable garden and has set out a patch outside the kitchen for herbs.

“Your grandfather would be hopping mad if he saw the vegetable garden,” Grummer says. “But you know, Beatrice, there's nothing like a home-grown lettuce.”

I think Grandpa's very dead and not really up to hopping anywhere.

I look at the row of guava trees in front of the house and I ask Grummer when they're going to get the chop. And when the rose garden and pond are going to happen.

Grummer says she and Mr du Plooy still have to talk about all this, if he ever comes back. “But I'm going to have quite a lot of indigenous plants as well,” she says. “Karel says the fynbos will attract the birds. And I do so love my birds.”

I look across the lawn and see three hadedas pecking away between the weeds and I feel hungry. I tell Grummer it's time for Mid-Afternoon Snack. We must, must, must stick to The Schedule!

I'M AWAKE EARLY today. I'm very excited. Today's my session with Dr Pete and we're going to talk about “the meat issue”. Grummer must be excited too 'cos she's pottering around in the lounge and she's already had her walk. I go into the lounge and see her trying to settle a rooikrans tree in a pot.

“So, Beatrice, what is today?” Grummer asks. And I tell her it's the day we see Dr Pete to talk about “the meat issue”.

And Grummer says, yes, but it's also the day before Christmas. And I say, of course it is and I help her decorate the tree.

After Breakfast, Grummer takes me to the surgery. Dr Pete gives me a high five and asks me to jump on the scale. And then he looks and rejiggles the weights and says he can't believe it.

And he tells Grummer to take a look and she says she can't understand it.

I figure from the expressions on their faces that I've made it into the obese kid category and I could kill myself for all the peanut butter sandwiches I've been eating. It's all over. I'm now a fat kid and won't be able to see Dr Pete any more.

Dr Pete sits me down and he asks me and Grummer if we've been following The Schedule! Grummer assures him and I tell him Abso-Lutely; I never lie. And Grummer narrows her eyes and gives me a skeef look 'cos she knows about Guido. Dr Pete asks me to take off my shades so we can talk “eye to eye”.

“The problem, Beatrice,” Dr Pete says, looking at me in the left eye, “is that you have lost half a kilogram. And this is not possible if you've been following the schedule.”

He asks me what I think went wrong. “Come clean with me, Beatrice. You can trust me,” he says. I tell Dr Pete that I trust him (not).

I notice that Dr Pete has seven brown dots on the blue part of his eye and I can count three hairs peeping out of his left nostril, which is a bit gross, and I think that when he and Grummer become an item like Brangelina known as Pevis or Mater he should ask her to pluck them out.

Dr Pete says if I don't come clean with him I'm going to be admitted to the special hospital in Somerset West (where I will be surrounded by loser doctors who don't have their own practices).

I consider the options, grit my teeth and tell Dr Pete that I've been cheating on The Schedule! And he nods as if he knew it all the time. He looks over at Grummer; she's stopped knitting and is giving me the crossest look I've ever seen. The line between her eyebrows is very pronounced and I hope Dr Pete doesn't notice her cross, ugly face 'cos he still looks like Colin Firth and she now looks like Nanny McPhee.

“It is not possible. I have monitored every meal in the past four days,” Grummer says and she purses her lips at Dr Pete.

I can't bear to see the lovers quarrel, so I tell Dr Pete about the peanut butter sandwiches. “But I puked them up,” I quickly add. “Really, it was like I hadn't eaten them at all. It wasn't really a cheat.”

Dr Pete first looks angry and then he laughs. He says it's fine and we're going to change The Schedule! so that I can eat peanut butter sandwiches in between my meals and my snacks. And I won't have to puke them up, because they will be on The Schedule!

He says we must now talk about “the meat issue”.

“Tell me, Beatrice, why don't you eat meat?” Dr Pete's got a notebook and he's writing down everything I say.

I tell him it's a sad story and it goes like this: just after Guido left, Mom took me to a farm for the weekend. And the farmer, an old Mr MacDonald, took me around to see all the animals. And on this farm they had cows, sheep and chickens. (E-I-E-I-O.)

I look over at Grummer and she's got her Nanny McPhee face on again and she catches my eye and I give her a wink. She snarls at me and attacks her bra strap.

I carry on: “And on this farm they were slaughtering animals. With a chop-chop here and a chop-chop there. Here a chop, there a chop, everywhere a chop-chop. And I saw it all and it was very, very, very disturbing. Very disturbing.” (E-I-E-I-O.) And I put on my sad face and steal a look at Dr Pete through my shades to see if he's also disturbed by the story. He doesn't look very traumatised.

“Fascinating,” he says and he reaches over and takes off my shades. He's looking at me like I've got a zit on the end of my nose.

Then he looks over at Grummer and asks her, “What time did you say Beatrice's mother was arriving?”

Grummer looks at me and says that her daughter will be arriving tomorrow morning for Christmas.

Her daughter. My mother. Mom's coming for Christmas ! I glare at Grummer. I glare at Dr Pete. I glare at the two lying, sneaky collaborators. Grummer rushes from the room.

Dr Pete tells me he just has to amend The Schedule! to replace the meat with vegetarian alternatives. There's a tap on the windowpane and I see a hadeda pecking at the glass. Dr Pete throws his pen at the window.

“Bugger off, vermin!” he shouts at the fat bird and closes the window tightly. He doesn't look a bit like Colin Firth any more. More like a monster from a horror movie. Then Dr Pete puts on his normal face again and gives me a high five and says that our talks are very illuminating and that we're making progress. He'll see me in four days' time and I must stick to The Schedule!

Grummer's hardly out of the driveway when she pulls the car over and rips off my shades. She's a little annoyed. Understatement.

“You stopped eating meat five years ago because it all went off in the freezer and you were stuck in the house for four days with no electricity and rotting meat and nothing to eat. You're a stupid, stupid liar, and I love you and you make me mad.”

And Grummer goes for her bra strap, but she's left a trail of snotty tissues in Dr Pete's surgery, so she wipes her nose with the back of her hand. Eeeeuuuuw!

I tell Grummer she's got snot on the back of her hand and that she can't blame me for inheriting the liar gene. “You never told me
she
was coming for Christmas,” I say. Oh, and by the way I don't love you and you make me bored. (But I don't say this bit; I just think it very hard.)

And Grummer tucks her hand away and says she never lied. She was going to tell me about Mom. She says she's sorry. I say I'm sorry too.

I'm sorry She's coming for Christmas.

I'M LYING ON my bed when I get a text message on my cellphone:
Hwo did yuo konw?

It's from Toffie. I text him back:
How did I know what?

Aoubt DrPtee
, Toffie responds.

I reply:
I knew 'cos he told me I could trust him three times. What you got?

Toffie texts me back:
He si a klleir
. Which I work out means “He is a killer”.

I tell him I'll meet him at the den in half an hour.

I get out my laptop and open the file on Dr Pete. The heading is “What Is Dr Pete's Dirty Secret?” I've listed three possibilities. The first two offerings come from my two and only friends back home:

(The last one was mine.) I text them back and tell them they were the closest:
Dr Pete is a killer.
Way to go Dr “you can trust me” Pete!

I close my laptop and get ready to meet Toffie. Grummer says I mustn't be long 'cos we have church in the early evening.

I find Toffie pacing outside the den. He tells me to sit down and he gets his notebook from the hiding place in the wall. He reads from it slowly, like a policeman reading a statement:

Surveillance Report on Dr Peter Waterford (aka Dr Pete)

Client:
Ms Beatrice Wellbeloved (aka Boss).

Reporting Officer:
Christoffel Appel (aka Toffie).

Okay, okay, get to it, Toffie. Give me the dirt. Toffie glares at me and says he needs to do this properly. He starts reading again:

On 22 December at 17:00 hours The Target is seated in a deckchair on his veranda. He gets up and chucks dogfood pellets on the lawn. When a flock of hadedas are engaged in their pursuit of food, he blows them away one by one with a gun. Surveillance ends at 18:30 hours.

I tell Toffie this is dynamite. He can continue.

On 23 December at 07:00 hours The Target emerges from the house in his dressing gown. He takes the seven dead hadedas from the killing field and arranges them on the veranda. Then The Target employs a biltong cutter (the ones for dried meat that look like baby guillotines) and chops off their beaks. He disposes of the body parts in the plastic garbage bags. Surveillance ends at 07:22 hours when The Target re-enters the house.

Toffie says there's more and reads me three more entries which expose yet further killing orgies.

I tell Toffie there's only one outcome from this scenario: Dr Pete cannot, must not, will not marry Grummer. There's just no ways she's going to buy in to his sick little hobby. Not with her being so cracked on her feathery little friends. It's a crying shame, but this is it. Goodbye Pevis. Goodbye Mater. And Dr Pete will have to see to his own hairy nostrils.

Toffie says there's also another outcome: “Beat, he's got to be stopped, man. It's a crime what he's doing. We must stop him.”

I tell Toffie that he can't take things too personally. He needs to learn to leave his work behind him when he goes home. We need to FOCUS! I tell him to get Mr David Davis-Davis and the other uglies from the slush pile.

Toffie says he's quitting Project: Pulling for Grummer. And he's also quitting me. “You're sick like him, Beat. You've got no heart. I don't need your help. I'll stop him on my own.” And he storms into the den.

For the next ten minutes he raves at me from behind the wall: just because hadedas are fat and ugly doesn't mean they're not special. They shouldn't have to die just because they're not endangered. “And one last thing, Beatrice Wellbeloved,” he says, “they're scared of nothing. Nothing, do you hear me? When they cry, they have the power to wake the dead!”

Toffie's making weird snotty noises. I think he's lost it. I shout at him that he needs to turn in his gear and he chucks the cellphone over the wall. I catch it with my left hand. Yee-ha! Way to go, Beatrice Wellbeloved!

I meet Grummer at St Paul's. There's hardly any room to move. It seems like everyone from Die Skema and Die Trein has checked in for the Christmas evening show. And to help themselves to all the goodies by the Christmas tree.

I spot Silas the closet albino monk in the pew on the left and he smiles at me. I wink back at him 'cos he still doesn't know
who I am
: the secret bloodline of Mary and Jesus. The living Holy Grail.

Pastor Aitch's sensational Christmas message is this: we are all God's children and He loves us all equally (even sick creeps like Dr Pete).

I look around the church and I see all God's children. And I think that Pastor Aitch's Christmas message would blow Dan Brown's petty little exposé out of the water. She should write the novel and get
The Da Vinci Code
thrown off the best-seller list.

We do a lot of singing and clapping and falling about on our knees and then Pastor Aitch says she wants us all to make peace with ourselves and each other as we go into Christmas.

Grummer and me hug each other awkwardly for too long and she murmurs how sorry she is about Mom and how much she loves me and I murmur back that I'm sorry about Mom coming for Christmas too and that she's standing on my toes.

Back home, Grummer tells me that I must hang my Christmas stocking by the fireplace and then we can listen to some classical music and I can drink my protein supplement drink.

I tell Grummer she must open her present from me. Now.

And she says, “Oh no, Beatrice, we always do it on Christmas morning.”

And I say we always do it whenever Mom makes it out of rehab and it's usually the day before I go back to school.

Grummer relents and opens it and I can see from her face she loves it. She says, “What is it, dear?”

I tell her it's an iPod (MP3 player) with 3,765 classical music hits I downloaded, and I show her how to use it. And Grummer says she loves it, but she'll miss the adverts they always play in between the tunes.