“Nothing. That’s why I’m interested.”
“Ja, that’s the one.”
Van Niekerk appeared to be examining his pen sketch of a moustache in the mirror but he was keeping the edge of an eye on Kramer.
“But haven’t you got someone working on that one already, sir?”
Kramer smelt tact.
“I’ve got a kaffir. He’s no bloody good for what I want done.”
“Which is?”
“Statements, phone inquiries, paperwork.”
“I could take a look at it, sir.”
Kramer handed back the soap, unused.
“Then let’s go up to the main office for a minute, Willie.”
The minute lasted one hour and some seconds. By the end of it, Van Niekerk knew all he needed.
And Kramer was on his way home. Home sweet home being a room in the house of a retired headmaster. Perhaps, strictly speaking, it was more than simply a room for it opened out on to its own enclosed verandah covered in granadilla vines. There was space enough for quite a bit of furniture and not a few callers. Kramer preferred to live without either. He settled for a divan, small wardrobe and a cardboard carton in which he kept his laundry lists and private papers. He had long since secretly conceded that he shared, in part, the philosophy of the Kalahari Bushmen. These hunters believed that shelter and clothing should be no more elaborate than circumstances demanded-a man’s duty was to invest his labours in his belly so to labour again. And that was how Kramer spent his money. Whenever possible, he would glut himself on steaks rich and various and as rare as a welder’s thumb.
His living arrangements did, however, have one disadvantage which a savage might laugh off but which distressed him in the mornings: he had to share a bathroom with the landlord, Mr Dickerson, and his lady.
Kramer braked hard. The traffic lights outside the Rugby ground had beaten him to it. He sat back in the bucket seat of his own little Ford.
And in a moment of total recall he felt the pinch of the narrow, cold bath on his shoulders. Then the icy droplets falling from the washing festooned above it on a rack. The old dear’s knickers would dry in ten minutes out in the sun. Oh no, she feared the sight of them might incite the garden boy. It was no good speaking to her about it either. She would only ask again why the law required bikini girls on cinema posters to have decent dresses painted over them. There was no answer to that.
The lights changed.
As if to demonstrate that such feats of memory were not necessarily an act of will, his brain made manifest what really had caused him to baulk at the thought of a bath before ten o’clock: the smell.
Mr and Mrs Dickerson were of the age and disposition well known for its morbid preoccupation with bowel movements. The window sill, the shelf above the washbasin, and the medicine locker itself bore weighty testimony to this. There were patent pills, powders and potions by the score, promising everything from gentle relief to an event not far short of common assault. Each label presumed the sufferer need search no further, but Mr and Mrs Dickerson preferred to approach their problem with at least an open mind-and as some might the blending of an elixir. Every evening they met to discuss a fresh formula in laboratory whispers, gulp down the ingredients and retire with expressions of hopeful anticipation.
Unhappily, the test bench was also in the bathroom. Not any amount of lace trimming around the seat lid could disguise the fact twelve hours later. Not with the window nailed shut for fear of tempting the garden boy.
And after all Kramer had been through, it was just too much. His mind relented and it was like finding a full bottle among the empties: he realised it was Thursday-and the Widow Fourie always had Thursdays off.
Kramer gave the Ford its head and took the first turning left. Hibiscus Court’s basement car park swallowed him up just four blocks later.
The Widow Fourie answered his second knock, a little sleepy but in her housecoat.
“Where are the kids?”
“Out with Elizabeth. They’ve gone down to the swings.”
“Who?”
“Oh, just my new kaffir maid. Sonja got her for me-she’s very clean.”
Kramer smiled wryly.
“Come on in, Trompie, people can see me.”
He stepped inside and leaned back on the door to close it. The click cocked his nervous system.
The Widow Fourie walked towards the bedroom. Then, noticing that Kramer was not following her, she turned and allowed her housecoat to swirl open. She had nothing on underneath.
Kramer approached her. She closed her eyes and he kissed her. Then he covered her nakedness.
“Got any Lifebuoy?” he asked.
The Widow Fourie blinked.
“Could ask you the same thing,” she smirked, regretting it instantly. “Hey, no you don’t! You stay right here. There’s your chair. I’ll get the water running.”
But Kramer was afraid to sit. He stayed standing until she returned to undress him, very gently. It was a mother’s touch.
“That’s not Lifebuoy,” Kramer protested as he was led into the sun-bright bathroom. “I’ll come out of here smelling like a bloody poof.”
The Widow Fourie responded by sprinkling another handful of crystals into the already murky water. She knew how he liked them.
The first thing he did once he was in the water was to grab a plastic toy and hurl it into the corridor.
“Man, you’re in a funny mood,” sighed the Widow Fourie. “Annie loves her duck. Don’t you remember bringing it to her?”
“So?”
“Now, look here, Trompie-”
“More hot, please.”
He forgot the duck and concentrated on the cabin cruiser. It was a good wide bath and by moving his arms skilfully it was possible to create a current that sucked the boat all the way from the plug. On his third attempt it went aground on the weed-locked shores of his chest.
“You’re just a big kid,” the Widow Fourie muttered, tying her belt tight like apron strings. “I suppose you want chips with your eggs?”
He was asleep.
And he stayed asleep until she tried to change the water which had become surprisingly chill for such a hot day.
“No, leave it,” he said. It was like a Cape stream in spring.
So the Widow Fourie perched on the wash basket and lit two Luckies. Kramer dried a hand and took one. He began to talk.
Eventually the Widow Fourie asked: “What was this Gershwin like when he confessed? Was he all relieved like they are in plays on the radio?”
“Oh ja. All off his chest. One big smile.”
“I can never understand that. It seems so stupid. I mean, now you’re going to hang him.”
“So? What is everyone afraid of? What they don’t know. Now he knows. Simple.”
“Still, it must be hard getting it out of a kaffir like him.”
“True.”
“Zondi has their mind, of course.”
The cabin cruiser sank beneath his fist.
“True, too.”
Bubbles came up in a thin stream.
“Why so quiet all of a sudden?”
“Nothing.”
