11 – Remedial lessons

Although we rarely call each other during the week, it’s Tuesday night and I know she knows.  I can feel it in my fingers, is how it goes, right?

Dad reads his book through his bifocals, so thin you can tell if he’s reading or looking at you by the slightest tilt of his head.  He’s so quiet, just sitting.  Mum’s lecturing me on how bad my Afrikaans is.  Threatening to send me to remedial classes.  The mere mention of the word remedial is enough to trigger the smell of baby vomit and unwashed children from some horrible ex-teacher desperately trying to adjust to her new life as a stay-at-home mother.

The SADF have another parade on TV, Zeus our Staffie licks his ass in a slow deliberate rhythm to the beat of the cicadas outside the grill on the front door.  Mum rights her notes in her books, Chomsky the giant ginger cat lies on her back in the crevice of the Biggie Best couch.

The Whiskey decanter looks lower and I know why.

I sit on the floor and attempt my geometry homework.  None of it makes sense to me and I have a vague suspicion that having not understood the last 3 chapters is likely to be part of the problem.

The phone rings while my mum heads off to the kitchen, her glasses balanced on the side of her chair.  She says, “Honey?” and I look up at her and she says, “never mind, I’ll get it”.

The way she says “Oh, hi”, lets me know that it’s not for her. The way she says “Fine thanks. How are you?” tells me it’s for me. And the way she says “Sure! Just hold on”, means it’s definitely Belinda.

From the bedroom she yells out, “It’s your girlfriend”, a standard opening move in our three year war. We cross in no man’s land and she fake -smiles and I shake my head at her.  I find it hard to breathe like I’ve half swallowed, half breathed in a Pomegranate.  I shut the door softly and pick up the phone.

“Hey”

“Hey.  How’s things?” hoping like fuck my voice doesn’t decide to break mid sentence.

“Um yeah good, no well no. Not good actually.”

“Um yeah, what’s,” is all I get out before she says “Come on, don’t do this”

“Ok” and I feel like such a coward. Sitting on the side of their bed, I put my head between my knees with the phone still to my ear.

“So?”

“So what?”

“So were you not planning on telling me?” she plays a good bluff game.

“Tell you what?”

“Lindy?”

“Ah yes, that”

“Yes that, you fucking asshole”, she whispers fucking and I imagine her in her mirror world, head between her knees but only so she can yell at me so her mother watching the same SADF march on SABC news doesn’t hear her.  There’s a long silence while I picture the Boeing through the walls, ploughing out of the sky towards this house and my sheer resulting joy.

“Who told you?”

“Who gives a shit?  Anyone.  What happened?  I knew it, you know? I knew you would.  I’ve seen how you’ve looked at her before.” Which is patently untrue; I’ve never before found her hot until I saw the tracks of her tears.

“That’s not true, I never thought she was hot”, which I only vaguely think at the time is the probably the wrong thing to say.

“Oh well that’s a relief.  What happened?”

“Ok, look, we were both really drunk.  It was late.  She was all over me.”

“Oh poor you, you’re twice the size of her,” to which I have a small empirical moment of doubt that that’s true. “I know,” I concede.

“I don’t really know how it happened.  I regret it Bel.  Seriously, I’ve felt like such an ass these last couple of days.  Sunday, I felt really bad.”

“And?”

“And what?  And, that was it.  There was just that and then she went home with Cam and them and I passed out on the stage.”

“And?”

“And,” thinking, what does she want? “And that’s it. There’s nothing going on. We’re still together, you and I.”

“Oh no, not so easily”, but already I know I’ve won and in my mind I channel down a gear.

“Bel?” I can hear her crying softly.

“Bel? It’s over.” Silence.  “She’s weird anyway.  She’s got weird friends.  I don’t like those punk guys”, she mumbles something.  “And she got weird feet, she had her shoes off in the club and her feet are all, like gnarled and yucky,” she laughs.  “I know”, she says finally.  “We have PE together and everyone always laughs at her feet.”

“I can see why!” I say.  “Was she kept in some dungeon by foster parents?” She laughs.  “They’re very Christian”, she says.  “And that thing she does with her tongue, its” and she shouts “Hey!” and I say sorry and I ask her how’s school and she says shit and when I get back to my maths the SADF are still at it.

~ by noisemachina on June 26, 2009.