Like it Matters

by David Cornwell

  Published in 2016 by Umuzi

  an imprint of Penguin Random House South Africa (Pty) Ltd

  Company Reg No 1953/000441/07

  Estuaries No 4, Oxbow Crescent, Century Avenue, Century City, 7441, South Africa

  PO Box 1144, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa

  umuzi@penguinrandomhouse.co.za

  © 2016 David Cornwell

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or be stored in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

  First edition, first printing 2016

  ISBN 978-1-4152-0160-2 (Print)

  ISBN 978-1-4152-0922-6 (ePub)

  ISBN 978-1-4152-0923-3 (PDF)

  Cover design and illustrations by Gretchen van der Byl

  Text design by Fahiema Hallam

  Set in Adobe Jenson Pro

  CONTENTS

  MEETING

  BEFORE

  THE REST OF APRIL

  THE BEST DAY

  MAY

  JUNE?

  ANOTHER GHOST

  DRIFTING OUT

  THE WORST NIGHT

  FALLOUT

  CLOCK TICKING

  AND BACK AGAIN

  BIRTHDAY

  MEETING

  Remember no matter where you go there you are.

  – CONFUCIUS

  It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself

  – EDGAR ALLAN POE, “THE BLACK CAT”

  MEETING

  JA, THERE’S LOTS TO TELL—but it has to start with her …

  It was about ten in the morning, and I only know that because I’d got there just when everything was starting up. I was right outside the door and I heard the microphone get switched on, then feed back a little, then someone start mumbling into it—

  That’s when I let the feeling that’d been at me all morning just take over and win—

  It’s ridiculous you’re here at all, Ed.

  You were never actually going in.

  I went and sat on a bench on the edge of the netball court outside and I lit what was probably my tenth cigarette of the day already. It burned my throat and made me retch. For a while my eyes watered, and to stop my hands shaking so much I got the pillbox out my pocket and clutched it between my palms.

  It doesn’t actually start with her.

  It starts with her dad’s van, this big old thing that sounded like a tractor, coming round the corner and driving onto the netball court. This thing with a black grill with two red crosses welded onto it like shields, and one of those massive, wide windshields, with curtains flapping out the windows in the breeze—

  It made me feel like I was back at Day One again, worrying the thing wasn’t real, I was making it all up

  Panicking, in case it meant I was too late, you know? Maybe I’d fucked my mind up forever already.

  But the van came closer and closer, and I blinked and shook my head and it still didn’t go away. It swung out and made a half-circle, and from the side it looked like an old fruit truck or something, with a corrugated cargo box that rattled above the sound of the engine in a whiny, shimmering way. The cab was dull but the box was painted shining silver and blue, with bright white clouds all over it and an arc of rainbow colours going across the top. And then all this stuff written in letters that looked like strings of balloons, Bible stuff like GOD IS LOVE, JOHN 3:16, JESUS SAID I AM THE WAY THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE. At the top of the van, near where the box joined with the cab, there was a little speaker rigged up and I was looking at that when the passenger door opened—

  And she climbed out

  And the moment sprang its jaws and caught me.

  She left the door open and walked away from the van without looking back. It’s so hard to say how she looked. She had hair that made me think of honey, and she wore heavy eyeshadow, and she had a sloping kind of posture that made her look misused and pissed off. She was small and lean and she walked like a boy. When she passed me on her way into the hall she was biting her lip, and I could see her cheeks had dimples and I could tell she probably pouted a lot.

  She went straight inside, didn’t turn around at all—

  I looked back at the van and that’s when I saw the thing that really just locked me in with her. I saw her dad, it must’ve been her dad, leaning over trying to close her door, not being able to reach it, dropping his head and shaking it, then undoing his seat belt and climbing out of his seat and finally getting the door closed, his face looking all angry and hopeless.

  And it was like this vision opened up to me

  It came all at once and it came so clearly—it was like on really dark, cloudy nights when lightning flashes and just for a second you see everything

  And all I could do was smile and say, “Jesus, old dude. Wasn’t she just born to break your heart?”

  And I know it’s strange, I know it’s weird, and I know it says something about me that I’m going to have to sort out, but for some reason that’s exactly what did it. It wasn’t just seeing her, it was seeing her like that.

  A wrecking ball in full swing.

  I heard the engine get some petrol and then the van turned and headed back across the netball court. That bright drone from the cargo box stayed in my head long after the van had rounded the corner and disappeared.

  I wasn’t sure what to do.

  The obvious thing was to hang out on the bench and then go up to her when she came out of the meeting. But I hadn’t shaved for a while, and I wasn’t wearing great clothes and I was still a bit twitchy—and I worried if I just walked up to her she’d think I was going to try sell her something.

  Or beg.

  In the end I figured that, inside, it was probably past the part where people have to introduce themselves and the part where everyone holds hands and says a prayer. They were probably reading from the pamphlets, or maybe it was already time to check in with your sponsor. I knew I could get through it if I had to. It just depended on whether I could get a seat with a view of her.

  I got up and walked back to the hall.

  The sun was out above the trees and the morning had a strange feel of being between seasons. I got distracted for a while by my shadow, seeing how long it fell, and how it had that weak, indefinite quality where it shaded the wall.

  How perfect, I thought.

  It’s the first day of autumn.

  I went up to the door and for a while I just stood there, picking at the peeling varnish and trying to talk myself into being decisive. I was about to reach for one of the big brass doorknobs—

  But then it started turning by itself

  And I had to step back as the door swung open towards me. She didn’t even look up, she just kept her head ducked and started walking away, her shadow following her along the wall.

  It was one of those moments where it felt like I was being tested, like I had to call up something that normally hides so well inside me I forget it’s even there—

  And I’m so used to faltering at times like that—

  And I couldn’t believe it myself when I called to her, “He’s been gone for a while now already. You wasted like twenty minutes in there.”

  And how cool was she, she didn’t even turn around.

  She stopped walking, just for a bit, and sort of over her shoulder she said, “You can follow me if you like.”

  She kept on walking and I hurried to catch up.

  But when I was there, walking next to her, I was so scared of saying something stupid that I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t even look at her.

  We walked in silence till we got to the road and then she stopp
ed, and turned, and looked at me.

  She said, “What’s that?”

  I followed her eyes down to my hand. I saw I was fiddling with the pillbox again.

  In the little canister, which for about a week I’d been carrying around like a dark talisman, were fourteen sleeping pills I got by stopping in at all the trauma centres in Muizenberg and Steenberg and Retreat and pretending I had PTSD. “Oh, nothing,” I said. “Really nothing.”

  “Is that a tattoo?”

  “Ja. I’ve just got the one,” I said.

  We both looked at my arm. I’d been on something when I got it done—it’s small and it’s just writing, this pale blue ink that says My mind’s such a sweet thing.

  “I thought it was a song lyric,” I said. “But I actually heard it wrong. Whatever. I don’t even see the thing anymore.”

  She laughed and then asked me, “Do you have a car?”

  “No, I don’t anymore. But I can drive.”

  “Ja, me too.”

  I smiled at her and said, “But you’ve got a pretty sweet ride at the moment though, hey?”

  And at first she just crossed her arms and stared at me, but then she smiled.

  She was much prettier than I’d first thought. Her eyes were the magic part. Slow-moving and bright, crystal green with black rims around the irises—sleepy, flickering, spellbinding eyes.

  “What’s the story with that thing?”

  “The god van? You must be new here.”

  “Did I really see a speaker on the top?”

  She nodded.

  “What’s it for?”

  “You don’t want to know,” she said.

  “No, I seriously do.”

  “Well. Sometimes on the weekends he makes me drive, and then he sits in the passenger seat and kind of … preaches. Just reads Bible verses over and over again. And always just the scary stuff.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Better than it used to be,” she said. “Before I could drive, I had to read. Like when I was ten or whatever. And then I stopped when I was fifteen. I remember that.”

  “But that’s pretty cool, though?” I said. “I mean, if it turns out there is a god or whatever, maybe you’ve still got some points saved up.”

  She didn’t smile. Her eyes drifted off, and then she just sighed and said, “No. It doesn’t work if your heart’s not in it. They say that’s the whole thing.” She started crossing the street, and after that it was like a shadow had passed over us. Almost like the air had changed, it’d turned all murky and heavy—and while we walked, both of us saying nothing, looking at our feet, I started to feel desperate and I got that sense again, like there was a clock ticking and I needed to do something, quickly.

  “Want to get ice cream and sit on the beach?” I said.

  She stopped walking and she looked at me. Plain as anything I could tell that the whole time we’d been quiet, she’d been far away. And battling. It was probably a pang, and bad thoughts came with it, and it was just for a second, but she had the most hounded, wounded look on her face and I couldn’t help it—

  I put my hand up to touch her—

  But then I couldn’t actually do it, and I just dug my hand into my hair and it felt like my scalp was on fire I was so embarrassed.

  “Ice cream on the beach?” she said. “Are you six years old?”

  “No, I’m just new here.”

  Half a smile.

  “I don’t have any money,” she said.

  “I’ve got a bit.”

  “I’m not allowed to have money anymore.”

  “Ja,” I said. “I tried that once as well.”

  We found a soft-serve caravan parked near the beach, and we got two and went down to the sand. It was the worst soft serve in the world—warm and creamy and it tasted like weak milkshake, and it came in one of those cheap pink cones that was so stale it was impossible to chew. And you had to fucking nurse the thing with your other hand so sand didn’t blow on it.

  “You don’t have to eat it,” I told her.

  “Breakfast,” she said.

  The beach was empty except for some surfers and fishermen and homeless guys. The sea was a bleak colour, and full of broken waves

  And it was a really long way from being light or fun or romantic or anything like that

  But it still felt like pure grace to be out there with her. Mostly we were quiet, but we talked for a while about the places I’d lived and about a holiday she’d had in Namibia when she was a kid, and between that and the sound of the waves a whole hour went by, the most peaceful hour I’d had in months.

  When she said she needed to go I asked her if it was okay if I walked her home. We got off the beach and went along the road that goes past the super tubes and then we crossed and started winding our way into the suburbs. We walked for a couple of blocks and then she said, “Actually, here. Put this on.”

  From the pocket of her hoodie she brought out some stuff—a couple of pamphlets, a kind of form with signatures on it, a badge that said FEELING GOOD!

  And two plastic bracelets.

  She put the other stuff back in her pocket, and then she took my hand and wrapped the band around my wrist and hooked the plastic over the stud. Then she held out her hand and I had to do the same—my fingers all hot and clumsy around her cool, small wrist.

  My bracelet was dark turquoise, hers was orange.

  “Did you choose the colours?” I said.

  “Painstakingly.”

  “So if anyone asks, I’m your sponsor?”

  “They keep telling me I have to get one. You don’t want to be?”

  “But this doesn’t have your number on it,” I said. I couldn’t do it with a straight face, though.

  She laughed. “Smooth,” she said. “But I’m not allowed a phone anymore.”

  We went a few more blocks and then we got to a corner with a thick, parched jasmine bush and we stopped. “My aunt lives down here,” she said. “If I don’t get there before twelve she calls my dad.”

  “Okay. My name’s Ed, by the way.”

  “Okay. I’m Charlotte.”

  I asked her, “Am I going to see you again?”

  “I go to meetings all the time,” she said, smiling and turning And walking away.

  That night, I had the kind of dream I told myself I’d write down as soon as I woke up.

  It was a new thing I was doing, and I’d started it out of a growing sense that that was the only great trade about living sober—that and money. More dreams you could remember and a bit of extra cash, and that was it.

  I was wide awake but I didn’t move for a while, I just lay there and let the dream settle. It left a lingering, clammy feeling on my skin. Finally I forced myself out of bed, and on my hands and knees in the dark, I found my pen and the little notebook I was using for the dreams and then I crawled back into bed and I put on the lamp

  And I turned to a brand-new page and I put the date and I wrote:

  You were dreaming about the van. Except it was bigger, it was HUGE.

  It had like 20 wheels and it was covered in neon lights.

  The lights made crosses and nativity scenes.

  All the Bible words were flashing.

  You could hear that screechy noise that the real van made and you put your hands on your ears—and then in the dream, you woke up. You were in bed, but it wasn’t your bed and it wasn’t your house.

  It was a big, nice room full of old furniture and oil paintings.

  There was a thin slice of grey light between tall red curtains, and you saw a gramophone over by the window.

  That noise was coming from the gramophone.

  You went over and looked and instead of a record, there was a rusty, brassy thing that looked like a cymbal under the needle.

  The noise was making you feel sick and you could smell something like smoke and raw metal and that smell was fucking with your stomach.

  You lifted the needle.

  When you looked around again, you
saw her in bed.

  You saw her EYES.

  Bigger, brighter than real life.

  Cat’s eyes—wolf’s eyes staring out at you there from the bed.

  BEFORE

  IT MIGHT’VE BEEN ROCK BOTTOM, I’M NOT SURE. I guess it all depends on if you can have more than one.

  Whatever it was, I’d been inching down towards it for years. Inching down and inching down, and then finally the big slide—and once you’re scrabbling, I promise, you go down so fast …

  I’d been working for about a year at the Castle Bar. I was living in a very cheap room in Cauvin Road, writing and sketching things during the day—not always high—before walking down the hill to get to work every evening. I was managing to save a bit of money here and there, and at least for me, my life was in a pretty good rhythm

  Until the night Phil showed up at the bar.

  Phil I knew from Grahamstown—he went to one of the rich boarding schools but we’d see each other most weekends—and he was probably the closest thing to a good friend I ever had. Our interests always seemed to dovetail on the issue of getting fucked up. We’d try sneak into bars, we’d cop a bag off a car guard now and then, we’d get a friend of Phil’s to steal some of his mom’s Lexotans for us—

  Pretty regular stuff, I guess—

  Except he was the one I ran to when I skipped town when I was nineteen with a bag full of stolen drugs in my dad’s car.

  He was my first port of call in Cape Town and he helped me sell the shit off to this elegant guy Ken, who ran a drughouse in Salt River called The Rainbow Lodge and who fucked us over a bit with his prices, but not nearly as much as he could’ve.

  Phil and I lived together for months after that and we had money and obviously we didn’t sell all of the drugs, and I really do remember us being happy. Until one day we had a massive fight because he’d left the back door open and the house had flooded and the box full of my mom’s books got damaged—I still hadn’t unpacked them because I wanted to get a proper shelf, and I was probably more angry with myself than anything else

  But I stormed out with my bag that day and we hadn’t seen each other since—

  It’d been six years