‘There’ll be no silverware for you,’ I said, ‘if you don’t know your Onions.’ I’d been saving the joke for later, during my speech, but it slipped out now, as if Wessels had poked me in the ribs.
No one laughed.
Once when Spilkin was doing the crossword, he’d got stuck on: O-o-. Authority on English language (6). Naturally I suggested Onions, thinking they had Charles Talbut in mind. Talk about throwing a spilkin in the works. They were looking for ‘Oxford’!
Excuse me, back in a tick.
My legs felt wobbly. What a scrape I’d got myself into. And even though I’d managed to come out of it with my dignity unsullied, I saw afterwards that it was the turning point of the evening. From that moment on, it was downhill all the way. It was as if they’d sensed some weakness in my character, caught a whiff of blood on the breeze, and that gave them the courage to turn on me. Like the herd on the old bull elephant.
*
The Gentlemen’s room smelt of Jeyes Fluid. I took off my spectacles and splashed water over my head. My excrescences were acting up — the eight o’clock occipital had begun to throb and its companion at nine was itching sympathetically. In the frosted glass of the window, behind which my precious copies dangled over the abyss, the familiar pattern of light appeared, like a pelt stretched to dry. Tan me hide when I’m dead, Fred. The paper-towel dispenser was empty and I had to mop my head with my handkerchief. So we tanned his hide when he died, Clyde. What do you call a boy who’s been mauled by a lion? Claude. One of Merle’s games. I felt queasy. I went into the cubicle to suck a mint. The lock had been jemmied, and I wedged the door closed with a cigarette box from the floor. On the back of the door was a childish drawing of genitalia, male and female, labelled ‘Supply’ and ‘Demand’. I could imagine them as two painted signs: Adam and Eve, Jack and Jill, Mickey and Minnie. Or pinned to the notice boards in the public library. What do you call a boy with a car on his head? Jack.
A scrap of melody with its agmas in tatters bowled along the horizon of hearing … tumblin’ along, like a tumblin’ tumbleweed … and disappeared into a merciful silence.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to take a short break. We’ll see you in ten minutes.’
Machines must be weary.
I sat down on the throne to compose myself. The King of the Elves. Glancing to one side, I saw that someone had bored a hole clean through the chipboard panelling. What would the vandals think of next? Putting my tireless right to the hole, I discovered that it afforded nothing but an unobstructed view of the urinal. Honestly, I was thinking to myself, of all the senseless — when Hunky Dory came in to relieve himself and made the purpose of the hole apparent. Thank God he didn’t see me.
*
Once the neck oil had been broached, there was no stopping them. They wanted to sample every bottle on the shelves. BYOB went by the board. Put it on the tab, they said, devil-may-care, and Tone obliged hopelessly. Errol made his selections with the tip of his pool cue and potted the stoppers off the end of the counter into the waste-paper basket to demonstrate that they would not be needed again. Bokma. Gestookt, it said. Bärenjäger honey liqueur, with a plastic bee stuck to the label. Moringué. Made of peanuts.
Wessels came hobbling at the first pop and pronounced the Friesian genever the best thing he’d ever tasted. It wasn’t long before everyone wanted to join in. Mevrouw Bonsma ordered Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, and Errol made it a round for the company. The stuff tasted of chocolate.
Tone put a brave face on it. He unsealed concoctions even the Bogeymen had declined to consume and mixed up a cocktail called an Exploding Rainbow. Like a chameleon in a paintbox (punchlines, Wessels). Errol drank it down in a gulp.
I’d never seen such drinking in all my days. It was inhuman. And they would keep forcing one to join in, practically pouring the liquor down one’s throat. When one was upset too, what with the shock of Merle’s death and the closing down of the Café to deal with.
*
‘Howzit Phil.’ It was Huge, in the vernacular. ‘What you got there?’
‘This is a dictionary. The Pocket Oxford Dictionary of Current English. The words of a language with their meaning and usage. Mausoleum ~ mean ~ mean ~ mechanical.’
‘Come again?’
‘Do you know that you’re in here?’ I asked, thumbing. ‘See: Huge. Adjective. Very large. Huge mountain, rat, difference.’
‘It’s not “Huge”, man, it’s “Eug”. E-U-G. For Eugene. How’s your mind?’
*
Wessels had crept closer to eavesdrop on my discussion with Bogey. I could practically hear his ears flapping.
‘Apartheid is yesterday,’ Bogey was saying. ‘But things of apartheid is today. Many things, rememborabilia … benches, papers, houses.’
He pressed a business card into my hand. Dan Boguslavić. Apartheid memorabilia. Import/export. The postal address was in Rndbrg. He made me look at his catalogue, eight glossy pages smelling of fresh ink. Ostrich eggs with paintings on them: Sharpeville Massacre. District Six, Forced Removals. Student Uprising, 1976. Stephen Bantu Biko. I thought ‘Bantu’ was outré? It didn’t end with eggs, either. There were all sorts of things for sale. Benches, whites only. Easy to assemble. Blankets, prison, grey. Books, reference.
‘People will hardly be interested in this old junk.’
‘Wakey-wakey, Aubrey. Is same in Germany now. Uniforms and hats is coming very strong.’
‘It’ll be Yugoslavia next.’
‘Bingo. Is exactly so. Major turnover is rubble.’
As if I couldn’t see the fresh produce sprouting from his pockets.
‘What’s with the veggies?’ Wessels said, sotto voce, the voice of the sot, canny as ever.
‘Is help for keep mout’ busy. I am give up smoking an’ stress like mad.’
In the pool room, Raylene was dabbing the end of her cue with a block of chalk. She must have felt my eyes upon her, because she glanced up and showed me the blue-smudged tip of her finger. Quite friendly, despite the muscles. There was Errol, bent over the table, with his bottom lip almost touching the cue. Full of himself, slopping over, dripping from that fleshy spout. And there was the improvable girl, drinking beer again and blowing smoke through her nose as awkwardly as a child who has stolen a cigarette from her mother’s handbag.
‘Quite a jôl, hey Aubs? And you said it would be a damp squid.’
Empty Wessels, the echo chamber, my incontinent, uncontinental china. He should be in Bogey’s catalogue amongst the novelty items.
‘You’ve certainly invited a crowd.’
The place was filling up. People who’d never set foot in the Café Europa before, by the look of them. You’d have thought it was a free-for-all. I’d half expected this to happen: chaos had been let loose everywhere and it was even worse during the festive season. Why should tonight be any different? And yet I’d hoped against hope for something fitting.
‘Maybe they coming for the cham-poing-ships.’
‘Buzz off, you jamjar. You urn.’
‘Come, Mr Tearle,’ said Hunky. ‘You mustn’t let him push your buttons.’
*
‘What you call this spot again?’
‘Alibia.’
‘Isn’t that where old Gadaffi hangs out?’
‘You’re thinking of Libya, Floyd. This is A-libia.’