Like it Matters

by David Cornwell

  “It’s a big house.”

  “No, it isn’t. It’s a huge house, it’s preposterously big. But really, just look at it.” I went and stood behind her, my one hand on her shoulder, the other one pointing out in front. “You see how it’s lit from the bottom like that? Those are footlights. And you see how they’ve cut the ivy, so you see those big shadows there from the leaves? It’s like they knew we were coming. And there, about halfway up the wall, those deep orange lights, don’t they just make you think of a castle? Burning torches or something. Rapunzel’s locked away somewhere up there, all night there’s a ghost up and down on the widow’s walk.”

  “Ja, it’s nice—” she said, but I didn’t let her finish. I turned her around, then moved behind her again and pointed across to the other side of the street.

  “Or else look at that one. It looks like a spaceship. And you see how it’s blue all along the bottom? That’s the pool, right? How fucking bright must that pool be?”

  She took her time to say anything. She was twisting a piece of her hair in both her hands, looking nowhere in particular—she was thinking. And she was so lovely I just watched.

  In the end, though, she said this thing that I didn’t get at all. Maybe it should’ve been a bit of a flare, I don’t know, but at the time it just added to my fascination with her. She said, “I guess I’m still hoping I’ll have all of this. You know? Someday. I don’t know how, like the details, but I can … I can see myself having it.”

  I didn’t know how to respond—how was I going to promise her a mansion?—but I thought for a while and then I said, “Ja, but here’s my point. Who’s enjoying these houses more right now, us or them?”

  She said, “No one’s enjoying them more than you.”

  I laughed, but I kept talking. “No, seriously though, think about it. Isn’t that the tragedy? No matter what’s going on inside those houses—family dinner in that one, coke party round that pool, maybe somewhere there’s a baby crying or a teenager getting his hand on some real skin for the first time, who knows—the point is, houses like this, they’re built to be looked at. And you can’t live in them and look at them at the same time.”

  “But all that stuff—the stuff that happens inside—that’s the important stuff, isn’t it?”

  “Ja,” I said, and I knew I’d talked myself into knots but I thought I had it finally. “Don’t you feel so close to it out here though, Charlotte? All of it, all those lives in there. Far away, sure, far away—but also close, really close?”

  She went quiet and it was like torture.

  “Am I scaring you?” I said.

  Her eyes were watching one of her feet trace a shape on the wet road. She said, “Listen, um …”

  “My name’s Ed. It’s okay that you don’t remember.”

  “Ed, this was nice. Not fake-liking anything, this was good,” she said.

  Then she smiled at me in a whole new way.

  All I could do was smile back, and for a long while, that’s all we did—we just stood there and smiled at each other.

  It was a woozy feeling and it got a bit too much for me and I broke off from looking at her and I tried to think of something good to say next. I couldn’t think of anything.

  I looked back at her, and thank god, she was the one who spoke first.

  All she said was, “Come here.”

  ON THE WAY BACK TO MAIN ROAD—

  We were going fast because she was worried we were going to be late—

  I held her hand and I told her the only reason I was looking for Bruno was because of my new job at Helluva Rides. Like celebrating. She said, “When you do the carousel, please make some of the horses scary. Red eyes. Fangs. Paint some snakes on there.”

  When we were a couple of blocks from the church she pulled me into a parking lot and we kissed some more. She kissed quite rough, but it suited her. My insides felt like coals in a furnace and I got the feeling that if you’d brought a match anywhere near my skin I’d have gone up in flames, and I couldn’t believe how long it’d been since I’d felt that, and it freaked me out to realise how much I’d been missing out.

  The kiss ended, and she put her hands on my face and looked at me straight on. She said, “Listen, Ed, you’re going to have to go ahead and check if he’s there already. And if he is, I’m sorry, but things might get a bit nuts. Just warning you.”

  “Like how nuts? Does he have a gun?”

  “No,” she said. She wasn’t smiling. “Just like shouting. And crying. From both sides.”

  I held her hands and I told her, “I’m not scared.”

  “No?”

  “No, I’m—”

  I didn’t finish because she kissed me again.

  I suppose I should’ve thought more about how to handle everything, but I didn’t think about anything on my way over there. I was just trying to catch up with myself. I had that old feeling of disconnection, of watching myself, except this time I was impressed—

  And even though she’d warned me, I guess I just didn’t believe in anything going wrong right then.

  I saw it from a far way down the road. Unmissably parked there with its headlights on, and just like in that dream I’d been having about it, there were some lights on the body of the thing. Not exactly like the dream though, because that truck was strung up like a Christmas tree—this was just a couple of guttering bulbs, barely shining at all.

  But what they did let me see, those lights, was what the guy had painted on the other side of the box. It was like the Old Testament side of the thing—instead of clouds and rainbow colours, it was flames and clouds of smoke, and lightning bolts, and there was some writing and I went closer to read it. In this gothic kind of script, these things you couldn’t even believe—DUSTY BIBLES LEAD TO DIRTY LIVES, HEAVEN: DON’T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD … There was a pitchfork sticking into the words HELL IS REAL and there was a picture of a thing that looked like a bat with long legs and this half-human face I’m not going to forget anytime soon.

  It threw me a bit, made me feel a bit superstitious and intimidated, but I was grateful I wasn’t high and I was so desperate to absorb whatever crisis was headed her way that I just went and stood in the headlights and waved into them. Then I went over to the passenger door and waited for it to open up.

  The cabin light went on but I couldn’t see much because the glass was steamy. Then I saw a dark shape against the window, a sleeve, and then there he was, peering out at me. I gestured like he should open the door. All he did was wind down the window.

  I walked right up and I said to him, “Hello, are you Charlotte’s father by any chance?” As soon as I’d spoken, I noticed this writing on the inside of the cab, it looked like it’d been done in Tippex, this tiny, tiny handwriting all over the seats and the dashboard and the curtains. Thousands of words. It was terrifying

  And I could feel it, the shift

  All of a sudden I wasn’t watching myself anymore. I felt wired into my skin.

  I had an instinct to just hit the guy and run, but then things got complicated.

  Really, that’s all I’d said to him—and I’d been friendly, I’d tried so hard to sound friendly, not sinister or threatening or like I had some bad news or anything like that. But after he’d stared at me for a while, the guy just started beating his hands on his grey head, and he pulled at his beard and then moaned this low, wracking moan. He wrung his hands like he wanted to break his own fingers, then wrapped his arms around himself and rocked there in his seat, breathing so fast and so shallow you’d have sworn he was freezing to death. And I wondered to myself how many times this kind of thing must’ve happened—and how bad a couple of them must’ve been—because I got it, I saw the whole weight of that history break on him right then, I saw him get sucked deep under

  And I kind of hated the old guy

  But I also felt really, terribly sorry for him, and in the end, all I could do about it was lie. I told him, “Hey, calm down, sir. Nothing’s up. She’s just feel
ing sick, so she’s gone to bed.”

  “What sick? You mean drugged out of her head, lying in a bed somewhere?” He grabbed the steering wheel and shook it and moaned some more. When he looked back at me his eyes were wild and shiny.

  “No man, just sick,” I said. “I’m Charlotte’s sponsor. Look.” I stuck my hand in through the window and showed him the bracelet I had around my wrist, glad I’d written her name on it. “I think she was just nervous about singing,” I said. “She’s really fine.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Just down the road. Priest’s house.”

  “Go fetch her.”

  “Well, she’s sleeping. The whole house is probably sleeping.”

  “I don’t care. You go fetch her.”

  And I don’t know if it was his tone, or just the dawning of the fact that I couldn’t keep lying forever, but I leaned through the window, my head was in the cab, and I said, “And when I do, what do you do to her?”

  “That’s not your business.”

  “Well, I’m here, so it is.”

  “She’s a wicked girl. Don’t get yourself in trouble with her, boy.”

  “Okay, but just try see it the other way for a second. You’re sitting here in this van, this van. I mean, look at yourself. Look at all this writing in here. This isn’t normal. Please tell me you can see that.”

  “Ag,” he said. “Everybody’s got a different normal.”

  “But, come on, if you’ve ever seen a show about a serial killer, this is how their fucking bedroom looks, every time.”

  He crossed himself when I swore and then he said, “I never hurt her. Never.”

  “Ja, but why does she hurt you? Hey? Just go home. Go home and think about that.”

  I turned to leave, but then I stuck my head back in and I said, “Listen, I’m not evil, hey, sir? Really. I’m her sponsor. You’ll see her tomorrow, I promise.”

  He was very still. It didn’t look like he was going to say anything for a while, but then he let out a deep breath and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands, and he said, “You think I haven’t heard that one before? That it’s all my fault? How many times do you think I’ve heard that?”

  “Do you change?”

  “No,” he said. “Never. You’ve got to teach your kids to believe in something. Otherwise, you’ve just wasted two lives.”

  He looked up at me then, and I saw a change in his eyes. They weren’t angry anymore, they weren’t even teary. Just very tired. “And you, boy?” he said. “Did your dad teach you to believe in any bloody thing?”

  “Ghosts,” I said, and then I left him there with his head buried in his hands.

  Walking back to her, I felt kind of the same as I had after the only fight I’d ever been in in my life.

  I was nineteen and I lost that fight—quite badly, actually, I’m still missing one of my bottom teeth—but I remember walking around afterwards, and for like a week feeling freighted with the knowledge that somewhere inside me, at the very least, there was a man who could take a punch if he ever wanted to give one out. I had that in me. Just waiting there, ready, a coiled spring.

  And so there I was—I had her, in a way, probably for the night, unless I’d just fucked it up with how I’d handled her dad. And I was happy, and beyond happy I felt like I was in, you know? I was playing this hand—it felt like the first thing I’d actually done in ages and while I walked I zigzagged on the pavement and I thought about having her in my arms again

  And I was so happy

  My blood was so torrid

  My chest so full of light, I imagined if I just leaned back and opened my mouth, I’d probably shoot a rainbow up into the night …

  WE WERE UP EARLY THE NEXT MORNING.

  I woke up freezing on the couch in the lounge, made coffee, then took it through to her in the bedroom. We sat together there in the dark and drank it and we didn’t say anything. We knew we had to go sort it all out with her dad. I guess we just didn’t feel like talking about it.

  We both had a shower and dressed in the same clothes as the night before, then she went and waited outside while I locked up the house.

  We were on our way out of Muizenberg, walking along Main Road, when a cop van pulled over in front of us and parked in the emergency lane. Put his hazards on. I stopped but she didn’t even break her stride. Then I saw the guy get out of the van—plain clothes—and rest his arms on the roof of the bakkie and call to her, “Charlotte? Howzit.”

  She slowed and I caught up with her.

  “What can I do for you, Freddy?” she said. Not in a mean way, but she wasn’t scared, and she definitely wasn’t trying to be sweet, either.

  “Nay, man. Nothing,” he said. He kicked at the ground and glared off towards the traffic. I could tell, immediately, that he was hopelessly in love with her. He said, “It’s just your dad’s been calling the station, man. Since last night already.”

  “Where do you think we’re off to?” she said.

  “Okay. Goed-ja. You want a lift?”

  She looked at me and shrugged. I shrugged back. We got in the van.

  We drove out of Muizenberg, past the holiday houses and the strip mall and the turn-off to Boyes Drive, through the robots and into Lakeside. First time I’d ever been in Lakeside. We took a turn towards the ocean and I started seeing tracts of face-brick houses, with lawns going right onto the street, so many golf-ball mailboxes, powerboats chained up in the driveways. I looked at her, she was sitting by the window—I had the bitch seat, with Freddy sticking his elbow in my thigh every time he changed gear—and I thought somewhere like this was probably right, either this or something really weird, like a houseboat or a caravan.

  But then we took another turn and we stopped right outside this beautiful old cottage. Like a Victorian thing, but rough—square and stonebuilt, with heavy timber in the doorways and tiny windows set deep into the walls. An oak tree outside that was so big it took me a while to spot her dad’s truck parked underneath it.

  We said thanks to Freddy and got out of the bakkie.

  He got out, too. “Charlotte,” he said, then beckoned her over to that side of the van.

  I looked at him, probably a bit younger than me, he had a fresh face with little bits of wispy, curly beard on it and this weird body, fat hips and a beefy chest. His voice was pretty cool and husky, but otherwise, I wasn’t that worried about Freddy. It felt more like they’d known each other for years. Maybe from school or something like that.

  They’d been talking softly but then I heard Freddy say, “But him?”

  He was pointing at me.

  What could I do? I laughed

  And they both looked at me

  And then Charlotte pushed him in the chest and said, “Just fuck off, Freddy”—

  And she walked up to the house, right to the front door, with only one look back to make sure I was following.

  Inside, you can imagine, I was worried it’d be like a Weskus version of the Inferno.

  But it wasn’t like that at all, it was actually beautiful. I mean, a bit spooky, sure, but not in the way you’d’ve thought.

  Later, Charlotte told me that her ma had decorated it, and that it hadn’t been touched since. It felt like that. Like a museum, or a tomb or a library, some kind of quiet and ritual space. It was dark inside, but there was warm light on the curtains and the lamps were in good places—showy places. You felt it was the kind of house where there’d always be cold shadows in the corners and little dust storms where the sunrays got in. I saw a lot of dark wood and reflecting glass, and there were paintings on the walls done in white and gold leaf and turquoise, and bright throws on the couches and silver pieces in blue velvet cases and a bouzouki hanging from a rope above the fireplace. I was sort of gawking at everything, thinking, Ed, your girl!

  She lives in a gypsy antique store!

  And she saw I was lagging and she said, “Come, just come through,” and she kept going, through the lounge and down the hall and t
hen out into a small courtyard. There was a cycad growing out there, and there was a huge, empty birdcage fixed to a stake in the ground. Her dad was sitting at a small table, head bowed, shoulders forward. No doubt in my mind, he’d been praying before we got there.

  Like she didn’t want to interrupt, Charlotte backed us out of the courtyard and we went down another hall to the kitchen. Also a dark room, but the curtains were open and a shaft of tea-coloured light streamed through some stained glass in the window. She moved quickly, opening cupboards and then kicking them closed behind her—moving almost under that beer-bottle light, a fish in rich water.

  She put the kettle on the stove and lit the gas, then came back with a tray with three mugs on it, a sugar pot and some milk. Two of the mugs were brown glass with plastic handles, the other one was white and all it said on it was JESUS.

  “How do you like your coffee?” she said.

  “Just like it comes.”

  “Well it comes powdery and dry, so I doubt that,” she said, smiling.

  I asked her, “Are you scared about all this, Charlotte?”—except it came out sounding a lot more intense than I meant it to

  And she just looked down and shook her head, and she didn’t look up again until she had the water in the mugs and the tray in her hands.

  Right before she went past me, back down the hall and out to the courtyard, she said, “Actually, I might be, I don’t know. I want you to still like me afterwards.”

  I took a minute. When I got out to the courtyard, Charlotte was sitting in one of the chairs at the table and her dad was mad-dogging the shit out of her—leaning forward, elbows on the table, his hands around the white mug, just glaring and glaring.

  The way she was sitting—straight-backed, head down, hands folded in her lap, biting on her bottom lip like that—told you it was a pose, and the whole thing looked like a tableau. Just with him believing in it all the way.

  I coughed so he’d see me standing there. He pulled out the seat closest to him and gestured at it. Seeing him in the daylight, he was actually a bit wilder-looking than I’d given him credit for. His big wet eyes and that beard that looked like a bird could nest in it, ja, but also his mouth. The thing was never, ever still, sucking and twisting and chewing. I could picture a worm made of mercury in there, and him trying to catch it in his teeth.