I Heart Beat (3 page)

I SPEND THE first three minutes after waking up counting the mosquito bites on my body. The overnight feeding frenzy has left me with twenty-eight bites. I add “buy mosquito net” to my “To Do” list.

Grummer's up before me. Long before. She's had her morning walk and picked up a few things from the café. The radio's playing classical music (boring).

“I think a person's routine is so important,” says Grummer as she straightens the knives and forks on the breakfast table. “I always like to take my little walk before breakfast. It helps me decide on all the things I need to do in the day.”

Oh great, a closet list-maker.

Grummer cuts grapefruit into eight wedges and arranges them carefully on the plates. There's a pot of rooibos tea for her and green tea (with fruit infusion) for me. Clever Grummer to buy bottled water while we weather the drought until Mr Potato returns. The toast is keeping warm under a tea cosy.

Before Grummer sits down she listens to the nine o'clock news. She stands for the full broadcast, then she sighs and turns off the radio. “Now we can eat breakfast. I always like to do things properly, don't you?”

Sure do, Grummer.

Grummer's “To Do” list is impressive. She ticks the items off with her fingers in between bites of marmalade toast: clean house, get geyser fixed, shop to stock the fridge, assess garden …

I could pick up some tips from Grummer. She includes personal tasks like finishing her novel, listening to the afternoon classical music programme on the radio and watching her soapie
7de Laan
. Freaky!

I finish my grapefruit and eat some toast. Then I eat a tablespoon of marmalade. (I like to keep my foods separate.) Grummer gives me the kind of look I keep in reserve for weird people. She offers to make me some marmalade toast. “There's nothing like hot, buttery marmalade toast,” she says. I tell her there's nothing doing.

After breakfast I go outside to assess the jungle. I take some photos with my cellphone from different angles. This is what they look like: one photo shows seven guava trees running across the lawn. They are six point four metres from the veranda. They are so big they hide the view of the mountain. Another photo is of a lawn of green jellyfish. Correction: they're weeds. The third has three rickety shacks in the middle of the lawn. The last is of a forest of scrawny trees at the bottom of the garden. My assessment of the garden: Grummer's going to be very busy. Too busy to bug me. I'm satisfied.

A bakkie pulls up and Mr Potato gets out. He's alone. He goes and does his thing to the geyser and chats to Grummer. He gives her names of people who can help with the garden and the name of a cleaning service. I hope they're relatives.

“Old Toffie says I must say his hullos to you, ” Mr Potato tells me. “He's helping at the bar this morning, but he says he'll pull in later. He liked you a lot, hey?” And then he winks.

Is this creature talking to
me
?

Grummer looks pleased. “I think it will be lovely for Beatrice to have a young friend in the village. Don't you think so, Beatrice?”

Sure, Grummer. I put a finger in the middle of my tongue and make a cotching noise (in my head).

While Grummer makes like a million phone calls, I check out the local phone directory for some professionals (point four on my “To Do” list). There are two doctors, a construction company and an attorney's office. I capture their numbers on my cellphone.

I call the doctors first. The one is dead (not a good recommendation) and the other is away for two weeks. I draw a blank with the construction company. They don't have engineers or architects. Just builders. The attorney has moved twenty kilometres away to Hermanus by the sea, where business is booming. The list of professional targets is a sum of one: the absent GP. Dr Peter Waterford. A clean-sounding name that.

I action point five on my “To Do” list (“check out geriatric hangouts”) and compile a list of Target Venues. Everybody knows old people need to do a lot of sucking up to God in the short time they have left before they kick the bucket, so I start with the churches. There are four of them: Anglican, Dutch Reformed, Methodist and Catholic. Sundays must be one big party in this dorp.

Old people are always sick, so I include Dr Peter Waterford's surgery on my list of Target Venues.

While I'm filling in the detail, the fairies arrive. There's nothing magical about them. There's one big Afrikaans lady and four uniformed middle-aged helpers, armed with cleaning equipment.

The big lady introduces herself to Grummer. Her name is Davonne Huiseman and she runs Fairies Unlimited, the village's house-cleaning service. She doesn't bother introducing her girls (she calls them this), but they bob and grimace at Grummer.

Grummer asks them their names and introduces herself. She tells them they are fine young women and they are a lifesaver. (Her eyes go all squiffy at Mrs Huiseman when she says the women word.)

Grummer then leaves them to the filthy house and takes off for the shops in Hermanus — to get out of their way. I slap on some sunscreen (factor 50
⁺
), a hat (black), shades (black) and hit the big city on foot to scope the Target Venues.

The dorp has one main street and it's laid out on a nice neat grid. I walk the grid methodically. In the middle is a large village green and there's a church on each of the four corners. I check out the noticeboards and make a note of the services. I ignore all the other bumf on Mother's Union meetings, the Wednesday night Bible study groups and the choir practices (don't want to get too carried away now, do I?).

Dr Peter Waterford's surgery is in the main street next to the Spar. His receptionist (Marlene) says he's in Jozi (she pronounces the city where I live “Joh-Hunnersburg”) and will be back in two weeks. Lucky Dr Waterford.

There's not a lot more to see. The hairdresser's next to the library. Her window says she is Sunette, recently of London. She's not in. The temp says she's gone to Cape Town to have her veins stripped. All the standing she does has made her legs look like a
3
D road-map. Shame.

On the side of the main road is a set of fake traffic lights. They stand at the entrance to a building. The lights show green, which tells customers it's open. I'm looking at the dorp's drinking hole: the pubbingrill, or as the sign says: Pub & Grill. The blackboard outside offers the best steaks in the province and a spit braai on Sundays. Can't wait. Barbecueing dead animals on a big stick are so my thing (not).

“Hey, you came to find me. That's nice, hey? I'm nearly finished here taking out the empties.”

The loser is squinting at me on the pavement. I give him a good, long look through my shades. This is what I see: one, short, fat, kid.

His face is a galaxy of freckles (needs factor 50
⁺
fast). He's got big brown cow eyes with lots of lash accessory (what a waste). He's wearing a horizontal-striped T-shirt which makes his tummy look like a contour map and it's tucked into — dare I say it — blue polyester shorts.

He looks at me back. “Shame, you must be so hot. Give me ten minutes and then we can go to your place and you can change into your cossie. I know the best place to swim by the river.”

Fat chance, fat boy!

TOFFIE DOESN'T DO rejection well. He follows me home on his bike and then churns it down the road, ringing his bell through the stop signs so he gets there first. He's sweating by the gate.

“I'm the winner,” he says like it was some kind of race.

The fairies have flown away and Grummer's packing away the groceries.

“Jis, your house is smart, hey?” Toffie says. His eyes are big with awe.

I watch him looking around the open-plan lounge, dining room and kitchen.

I get a horrible shock: Toffie's a Counter. I recognise the signs. His eyes zoom in on the bamboo-covered ceilings. Click. Click. Click. There are 1,292 sticks of bamboo on the ceilings. I do the calculations with him.

Before I know it, his eyes are on the terracotta-tiled floors. Click. Click. Click. There are 452 tiles.

That's enough, Toffie. This is
my
house.
My
scores. I don't share my habits with losers.

Grummer packs me some fruit and bottled water in a bag, and I grab sunscreen (factor 50
⁺
), shades (black) and a towel (black).

I make sure my cellphone battery is fully charged. I see some brilliant opportunities for visual material coming up. Prepare yourself for stardom, Toffie!

“You can ride the bike and I'll walk if you like,” Toffie offers. Charmed, I'm sure. Grummer has one better: “There are two bicycles in the garage. They came with the house,” she says.

I don't do bikes.

Toffie takes me to this place by the river. To get there, we have to walk through someone's front yard. He says it's quite legal. No one's allowed to own the river. The lady of the house looks seriously peed off. I give her one of my special merry waves.

Toffie eats the fruit and I drink bottled water and watch him eat. He cuts the oranges into quarters with his penknife and, after sucking all the flesh, carves orange-peel teeth. What a scream (not).

He eats a couple of pears one after the other with pips and skins. Sis! He likes to get as much of his face as possible covered in juice. He puts me right off my water.

“What, aren't you eating? Are you on a diet, hey?”

Oh, pahleez!

He says he's on a diet. It's called the Seafood Diet. “I see food and I eat it,” he says. He laughs like a blocked drain. Oh great, I'm trapped at the river with the village idiot.

It's hot and I smear on sunscreen (factor 50
⁺
). Toffie laughs when I offer him some. “That's for girls,” he says.

He strips down to his jocks. Correction: it's a Speedo. The ultimate fashion statement.

He takes a flying leap off the jetty and does a huge belly flop. My cellphone records this in full-colour video with sound. He doesn't let up for fifteen minutes. He forward-flops and back-flips and flops and flips. Then he throws himself onto his towel.

“So come on, get in. The water's lekker, man,” he says and starts to pick fluff out of his belly button.

I shake my head. As nice as the water is, I don't think so.

He looks at me all mournfully. “Ag, sorry man. That time of the month, hey? You've got the ladies' problem.”

I have not! I've never had a period. End of discussion.

“Do you have terrible cramps? My sister gets them so bad she can't walk. She calls her time of the month ‘Monica', but in her diary she spells it like ‘Moniker'. What name do you call yours?”

I call it my business.

His sister — her name is Adore. (Adore Appel — get it? I nearly wet myself.) Well, Adore works in the video shop. It operates out of the garage at the entrance to the dorp. One of the highlights I missed on my recce of the village this morning.

Talking of video shops reminds me, it's home-movie time. I show Toffie his fifteen minutes of glory. I've got some great close-ups of the tummy. And then his face when the snot poured out of his nose after he sucked water up the wrong way.

“Ag, jis, just look at that cool dive. Play that again. And that one — you see how I twist there?”

I pause on the tummy shot to make a point.

Toffie laughs hard. “Ag, no man, Beat. Don't look at my rolls. Ma says it's just puppy fat.”

Beat? Like, who's Beat? I'll Beat his head in.

Toffie says he's mad for the movie. He wishes he could put it on a videotape to give to his parents for Christmas.

I tell him I'll send it to his cellphone. He says he doesn't have one. I nearly pass out from shock. I tell him I'll email him instructions on how his sister can upload it off a website from her video shop computer and burn it onto DVD. Poor Toffie looks at me like I'm from outer space.

He leans over my shoulder while I get it sorted. While emailing to Toffie's brand new email address that I created for him —
[email protected]
— he leans in even closer.

“Hey, Beat, you've got hair on the top of your lip. It looks soft like a baby duck,” he says, lifting his finger like he's going to stroke my hairy face.

I get to my feet. It really is enough already.

We pass the pubbingrill on the way home. I'm used to bars. In fact, if I ever had to go on a quiz show and there was a “name the bar in Johannesburg where you can get a drink any time in the morning” question, I could name eight. I go to a good school for that kind of thing. Ha-ha.

There's a lady behind the bar smoking a cigarette. Toffie introduces me to his mom who, in between puffs, is putting clean glasses away with the forty-three others on the shelf (three chipped).

“Hey, Ma, there are two glasses missing,” Toffie says, blinking at the shelf.

Blast! This kid's real trouble. Losers aren't supposed to be Counters.

“You must come tomorrow for the spit braai,” Mrs Appel says. “Everyone in the dorp comes — and you look like you could do with some meat on your bones.”

I don't do meat — or barbecues — or people.

Mrs Appel's name is Brenda. I try every combo I can think of to make her name fit in with the rest of her corny family. But nothing works. Hmph!

I leave the bar and go back to the house.

Grummer's sitting outside on the veranda reading her book. She marks her page with a tasselled book marker and tells me it's lunch time. We're having salad and quiche.

I eat the lettuce first and then the baby tomatoes. I pick the mushrooms out of the egg goo and leave the crust of the quiche.

Grummer likes to mix and match her food. A bit of quiche and salad with a dab of dressing balances on her fork. She leaves her plate spotless.

“Your new friend Christoffel has such a pleasant, open face. I liked him immediately,” she says, clearing the plates.

Red Alert! Grummer's been had. I know Toffie's a freak. He acts like a loser but he's got dark, sneaky counting habits. I'm going to have to look out for Grummer if she acts this trusting around everybody.

There's a knock on the door. It's delivered by a big, hairy hand.

Argggh!