long before he died, my grandfather managed to publish a treatise on the philosophy and advantages of alcoholism. To his surprise, Sweet Logos was fairly successful. It’s out of print now, but I know that there are copies in one or two libraries.
‘Do you know his work?’ I ask. It’s a dishonest question. He only published that one book, apart from a couple of academic papers.
She shakes her head, ruefully. ‘I should, I suppose. But I’m afraid that this is the first time I’ve seen his name.’
‘It’s a good book.’
That, too, is a lie. In my view, Sweet Logos is rambling and precious.
She bows her head slightly, and turns away, signalling the end of the conversation. Her neck arches, its length exposed. My interest in her pricks up. Actually, I salivate. It is a pale column, with the finest blonde hairs stirring on the surface.
‘It’s more than a good book to me,’ I continue, suddenly unwilling to fade back into the queue. ‘It’s autobiographical. I’m in it.’
She turns back again, and looks at me cautiously from beneath her pale brows, her elegantly curved forehead. Her blue eyes flicker, small rapid movements of the iris, as she reads the planes of my face.
‘I’m the little boy in the second part, where he describes his relationship with his daughter.’
I don’t know why the transition from first contact to bed has always been so easy for me. I have the natural advantage of good timing, an exact sense of leverage. I know when to apply pressure, when to yield. In Bettina’s case, the turning point is her responsive smile, so legible, so quickly suppressed. I make her see me as that little boy in his grandfather’s book, a creature she can manage more easily than my adult self. A child can possess another child with less effort.
I’ve already learnt by now that when Bettina is disconcerted, her resolve shatters, everything gives way at once. A single tap in the right place will do it.
‘Here,’ I say, taking the book from her hands. ‘Let me show you, allow me to read you a certain description.’
Club Foot
He watches his mother as she works. Her hands are chapped, the flesh pale. The light coming in through the window is stark, and bleaches her face and arms almost the colour of milk. She is cleaning a galjoen, scraping off the scales with her old sharp knife. They spring into the air, rasping off in silver-grey showers. The kitchen stinks of fish blood.
He longs to talk to his mother. He knows she won’t answer. Her mouth is a healed gash. She is a creased milky body that breathes and moves and speaks only when necessary. He closes his eyes and tries to enter her flesh. He wants to move her arms, see through her pale eyes. He wants to live inside her where, perhaps, it is warmer. But she remains impervious and distant, and he remains where he is on the kitchen chair, kicking his heels softly against its wooden legs. He can taste the whiteness; it is like eating chalk or sand.
The sounds coming from outside – the teasing wind, the screaming gulls, the sea – combine with the scraping of his mother’s blade. They twist together into lines of music, briefly caught, something he might sing; then they are simply sounds and noises again. The scraping stops altogether. The fish slaps onto the board, he hears the cold tap running. He knows it is the cold tap because it sounds different to the hot one. Then comes the paddling of her hands and the smell of Sunlight soap.
He opens his eyes again. His mother is watching him. As usual, he cannot read the expression in her eyes. He looks away.
‘It’s cooler outside,’ she says. ‘Come, we’ll walk down the beach.’
Silently, he shifts off his chair and limps to the door. They step down onto the white sand, the scraggy grass. Light knifes into his eyes, and his foot hurts more than usual. He sits down on the step.
‘I don’t want to go,’ he says.
The flesh around her eyes seems to soften. She says, ‘I’ll carry you the first bit.’
She kneels down, turning her back to him. He climbs onto her back and wraps his arms around her broad shoulders, his legs about her hips. With a grunt of pain, or weariness, she straightens up and walks down to the sea.
He presses his face into the back of her neck. There is the jogging of her stride and the milky odour of her body. The breeze coming off the sea tugs at her hair; wisps brush against the side of his face. Then his mother walks into the sea, and stands ankle-deep in the surging water. She lets him down. The icy shock is a relief to his foot. They stand together looking at the horizon, holding hands.
‘It’s getting too cold,’ he says.
Reluctantly she turns away, and they begin their walk down the beach. He crouches over a large stranded jellyfish, a pudding of flesh almost a metre across, with a mob of whelk boring into it.
‘Is it dead?’ he asks. ‘They’re eating it.’
‘I don’t think so,’ she replies. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Can it feel?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’
He picks up a whelk by its conical shell. With nothing to attach itself to, the sucker squirms about blindly. He puts it back on the jellyfish and watches as it begins to dig into smooth, clear meat. He thinks: it must have a mouth in its foot. Then he straightens up and limps onwards. Pain curls through his foot and shoots up the muscles of his lower leg. He turns back, and looks at his mother.
‘Alright,’ she says, ‘we can go back.’
But they stand still for a while. There is no-one else on the beach. They are alone with the white light, the noises of sea and wind, the long converging lines of the shore. Am I alive or dead, he asks. Is my mother alive or dead? Can we feel? He hears his mother’s voice reply: I don’t think so. I don’t know.
* * *
It is a hot morning. He sits staring at the patch of light falling through the open door. When he doesn’t blink for a while, phantom colours emerge from the rectangle of light and drift across it. When he does close his eyes, the lids sting pleasantly. His mother is working in the kitchen, humming. It is a wordless song about being tired, and wanting things she doesn’t have, and about having things she doesn’t want.
He turns back to the rectangle of light. He can feel its heat on the surface of his eyes. It is a dangerous desert, and he is flying safely in a boat above it.
He is distracted by the irregular beat of an engine. It approaches the cottage and pulls up with a sharp squeaking of springs. His mother falls silent, and a door creaks open. They wait. Then, as the visitor’s shadow falls across his patch of light, a reek of unwashed flesh enters too.
It is hard to see the man who stands at the door, because of the glare behind him. He is tall and has long, wild hair. He clears his throat and asks, ‘Would this be the home of Caitlin Turner?’
The boy scrambles to his feet. He looks around, to see his mother approaching. She drops the plate she holds – it breaks with a dull sound into two uneven pieces – and then she stands quite still.
‘Caitlin,’
