The Memory of Water

²⁵ THE COURAGE TO CRINGE

One of the messages on my phone is a man saying he is the executor of Eve’s will and he wants to make an appointment to see me. I don’t return his call for days until Denise makes me. She says it might help pay off my debt and then I can keep the house. She has already received a not-insubstantial lump sum. I am obviously farther down the list of beneficiaries; I’m almost surprised that I’m on the list at all. I call the man and we set up a time. I worry that it’s a trap and ask Denise to come with me but she says I have to start doing these things on my own. I need to get better, she says. I need to function. I don’t see the point in anything nowadays, but I go see the man anyway.

The Jaguar is dirty again. It’s covered in dust and watermarks. Even the interior is starting to look grubby. I walk around it for a while, inspecting the scrapes, dimples and bald tyres. It used to be the love of my life. I could have invaded a small country for the amount of money I spent on her. I open the door and get in, then hesitate for a second before I turn the key in the ignition. I am certain it will explode and send my internal organs flying in all directions: a spleen splashing against the wall; an eyeball bouncing a few times on the driveway before rolling to a stop; a liver plopping onto the pavement. Fine needles of sweat break out all over my body. I psyche myself up. I think: if it does explode I won’t even know it. My body will be in tiny pieces and nothing will matter anymore. And that gives me the courage to cringe and turn the key.

When the engine starts I laugh and I feel a bit better. I feel like an idiot, but I am alive.

It feels good to drive through the Northern suburb roads with their maple leaf canopies. I pass people traipsing to work. I switch on the sound system and press play. The XX: haven’t heard this album for ages. God, I love the intro. I start nodding and tapping the steering wheel, realising that I have missed driving. It is a way to feel a small measure of control in the world. Despite the way I have treated my car in the past year, it reacts loyally to every millimetre of foot on pedal. Look, I turn the indicator on and it blinks. I brake and the car slows. I start to feel a little more normal, a little more myself. Maybe my life isn’t coming to an end. Maybe it just feels like it because I am not writing. Without writing I do not exist: the longer I go on not writing, the less I will exist. I will become some ghost of myself, where people look straight through me when I ask them for the time. The man with the will is in Sandton and it only takes me ten minutes to get there. I wish that I could keep driving. Instead, I park underground and take a grimy elevator up to the second floor. I follow arrow after photocopied arrow, walking down long passages and turning corners into even longer passages. The fluorescent lights overhead expose every smudge and stain. The carpets are stiff, mean, and old air conditioners crank out stale-smelling air. The place gives me a feeling of fly-by-night operations with their tatty logos Prestik’d to the textured-glass doors. Legal offices in limbo. Paralegal Purgatory. When I reach the address I have scribbled down in my new Moleskine, I hesitate before ringing the bell. For all I know they might be waiting for me on the other side, chloroform mask and scalpels in hand, ready to steal my kidneys and leave me in bath of dirty ice. And that’s if I’m lucky. If I’m not: forget the luxuries of the drugs and the ice. I ring the bell and am buzzed through.

The man with the will is dressed in a cheap suit as befitting our surroundings. He offers me coffee but I would rather stick with the cotton-mouth I have than take the risk. Who knows what kind of coffee they serve here. He begins with the pleasantries as per protocol but I zone out and just watch his receding hairline move, without hearing what he is saying. His hair matches his spaniel-coloured moustache and I find his face very distracting. What is it with these men with moustaches?

“… and so we have it ready for you,” he says.

I try to focus.

“Really?” I say, hoping he might repeat himself.

“You can take it with you today if you wish, or we could store it for you if you would like to come back at a time convenient to you.”

I have no idea what he is talking about and wonder how long I can play along, without him guessing I haven’t heard a word he’s said. He has a fat document in his hands which I surmise to be Eve’s will. He lays it on the table. I think how much television and movies affect our expectations of reality. If this was an episode of Dallas, the whole jewel-encrusted family would be crowded in here ready to grab their share of the loot and run. But only after showing up in velvet evening gowns, watching the homemade video will, hearing what everyone else has inherited, having a false-nail catfight, and drinking neat brandy out of crystal-cut tumblers.

“I think I’ll take it with me now,” I say.

“Of course,” he nods, “please excuse me for a moment.” He stands and walks across the office to a door I hadn’t noticed, and leaves the room. I try to sit still. My eyes fall on the document on his desk. I try to ignore it. Look out the window with no view. Ignore it. Look at my shoes. Ignore it.

Then all of a sudden I am standing at the desk with the will in my hands. My eyes race through it. Most of it is legal jargon which may as well be written in Mandarin, until I get to the interesting part. To one Shaw, her apartment, to another, the proceeds of the film company shares. Basically all her assets go to her family, strange because she never seemed very close to them. Maybe the idea of your death makes you feel closer to your roots. I hear the man’s footsteps and I try to scan faster. Unit trusts, annuities, stocks, all divided up. And then: her twelve-million-rand life insurance beneficiary, and also the recipient of all her liquid assets totalling another four bars: not a Shaw.

The cash not left to a Shaw, not a family member, but a Fox. A Susannah Fox.

The footsteps are right at the other side of the door now and the handle turns. I drop the document and fall back into my chair. The man looks at me, I try to look bored. I don’t think it’s working. He’s carrying a large rectangle covered in brown paper. He can just fit it under his arm. It looks like a painting: one of Eve’s.

Susannah Fox. Who the hell is she? I’d known Eve for ten years and never a word about a Susannah. Whoever she is, she’s now sixteen million rand richer. And since when did Eve have so much cash? I knew that her family used to be pretty wealthy but I had no idea she was… rich. Fucking rich. I knew she never worried about money. When she wasn’t painting in the studio, she was always dressed in designer suits, sunglasses, diamonds. When I was making a lot of money we used to buy each other cases of champagne as gifts: we both had a penchant for Veuve Clicquot. It never occurred to me that her financial circumstances were unusual. Successful artists can be rich, just like I used to be. Just because one follows one’s art, instead of becoming an accountant, doesn’t necessarily mean one has to shop at PEP. Eve was, after all, a sought-after painter. But sixteen million? Then why the dingy funeral and lawyer’s offices? Why the cheap wake whisky and dehydrated sausage rolls? Does her family resent her that much?

I take the mystery package from the man, shake his hand and make my way to the elevator, awkwardly manoeuvring the thing inside so that the doors don’t crush it. Must be Old Money. People don’t spend Old Money and that’s why they keep it. Not like me: I was the worst of the nouveau riche. I made all the mistakes that OM like to sniff at. How was I to know I wouldn’t be able to write another book? I thought I had it, the talent, the leaning towards success. I didn’t know it was something that disappeared and took your life with it.

Either that, or her family were poor. Lost the family fortune. It never occurred to me before because I don’t know anyone who is poor. Not personally, anyway. That would explain why Eve left them the money.

I put the car top down so that the painting can fit behind the front seats. I wedge it in so that it doesn’t fly away on the way home.

When the electric garage door opens and I drive down the driveway, I see that the back door is open. Denise must be here. I hope Denise is here, I am particularly in the mood for her. I press the button to close the garage and call out to her at the open door before going in. Nothing. When I am closer, I realise that the lock has been jemmied. Cold sweat. I try not to panic, take a step inside, expecting to be clobbered over the head by a gimp with a baseball bat. My den has been ransacked. Drawers have been pulled out and emptied, books lie on the oriental carpet, some splayed out with their pages to the ceiling, as if surrendered. The wastepaper basket has been shaken out onto the floor, and my laptop is gone. I clutch my chest and have to sit down for a while. Jesus Christ. The rest of the house seems untouched: cappuccino machine, Panini Press and Juicerator remain in the kitchen, entertainment system in the lounge. The bastards could have at least tried to make it look like a burglary. I call Detective Inspector Sello who seems impatient with me.

“Don’t you see?” I say, “Whoever did this is the same person who framed me for Eve’s murder. They’re after me! They want something from me. Come and look, the door’s lock has been broken.”

Sello seems distracted. Am I sure it was a break-in, he asks.

“Of course I’m sure. The place is trashed,” I say. It’s clear Sello thinks my house is always trashed, which is fair. He says he’ll send a team to take fingerprints when they become available, which may take up to a week. I shout, stomp around a bit and throw the phone against the wall.

I see Denise at the door with groceries in her hands. She has stopped in her tracks and is staring at the phone on the floor.

“Bloody cops,” I say. “If it had been anything to strengthen their case against me, they would already be here. They would have been here before it even fucking happened.”

She seems wary of me, not sure whether to come in. I walk to her and take the bags from her hands.

“Sorry,” I say, setting them down on the kitchen floor and starting to unpack.

“The door is broken,” she says.

“I’ll fix it,” I say. Fuck the cops; I’m not waiting a week before I can sleep again.

Denise is pale. I think this is the first time she believes that someone means me harm. Before, she thought I was just paranoid. I abandon the groceries and walk towards her.

“I’ll fix it,” I say again, pulling her body against mine. I can see that she is spooked and it makes me feel strong. I can protect her. I go to the storeroom for my toolbox and electric drill.

After the lock is fixed I add another one for good measure. It feels good to use my virgin tools. Denise inspects my work and sweeps up the sawdust from the floor. She asks about the man with the will and only then do I remember the painting in my car. I fetch it and Denise helps me unwrap it. I recognise it: one of Eve’s first successes. Despite generous offers, she wouldn’t sell it. She kept it in her studio, as if to remind her while she worked that she was worth something. Maybe that is why she left it to me: a reminder on the wall that if I did it once, I can do it again.

It’s a picture of a man holding a basket of fruit, Tretchikoffian smoothblue skin, but the background is made up of hundreds of miniature portraits, mixed media, with tiny threads and slivers of ribbons and miniature buttons, as if some dollhouse-maker had gone crazy. Some of the people in the portraits are reading, some pulling faces, some sleeping. The detail is astonishing. I imagine Eve hunched over this canvas with the thinnest brush and a magnifying glass. If you look closely enough there are words in the fruit, disguised as shadows and texture: entourage, proliferate, strumpet. Eve loved the sounds of some words. She didn’t care what they meant.

I should sell it, but know that I won’t be able to. Denise thinks it’s worth two hundred and fifty K, maybe more now that Eve is dead. While I still have my toolbox out, I drill space for a Rawlplug and a screw, and hang the picture in the lounge. The man’s eyes follow me, like the people trapped in the paintings at my dad’s house. He looks like he has something to say.