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LW Hiemstra Trust

Marcelle Olivier
is completing an honours degree in English Literature at the University of Stellenbosch. Sy skryf omdat woorde so ontsaglik mooi is ...

Something in the basin

“There is something in the washbasin.”
“What do you mean? What?”
“No, just something. I don’t know. A spider.”
“Is it dead?”
“Well, it’s draining away at this very moment. I let the tap run. It looks horrible.”
“Well, then what’s the problem. Let the spider drain away.”
“But it shouldn’t be there like that. There should not be anything in the washbasin. I wash my face from it.”

Later I went back to see if the something drained away; I let the water run for about ten minutes. It was still there though, and I let it stay there. If Michael wants to shave tomorrow, I thought, he will have to fix the problem. I went to brush my teeth in the kitchen.

Michael was reading Donne.
“I think Donne is slightly too concerned with his own pleasures,” I said as I pulled the sheet up to cover my nose. I was going to have to breathe through the sheet tonight because Michael will smoke and I have a fear of black lungs but I love Michael. His cigarettes were already on the bedside table; after he finished his poetry he would sit up to take two out and put the box back in the drawer, light one and leave the other for later when he wakes up again. He patterns when he reads poetry.
        “Mmm,” he said and turned a page.
        “Mmm,” I said in reply and touched my left breast to see if it was still there. Michael reads poetry because he loves me. He is clever. He says he cannot know if my stuff is any good unless he has studied others’. I framed the certificate from the Bloomsbury Awards two years ago and put it in his study so he won’t have to feel guilty, but I am glad he still reads poetry.

“It’s your hair,” Michael said as he came back into the room with half a clean face. I applied black mascara to my eyelashes. “Your hair was in the basin. It’s because you brush it over the basin – I assume. I took it out.” Michael is a sweet. He does things like this for me all the time; even if it were a spider he would have removed it. My eyes look very round when I apply mascara, and it makes me seem innocent. I was going to see my publisher today. Greta said I was lazy finishing my work, and I have to go and explain myself. It is not laziness as much as it is patience. I was waiting for things to happen. The mirror to break. The kitchen curtains to catch on fire when I was not looking. Michael to leave me. Something was bound to happen sooner or later and then Greta the Great would get her finished book.

Michael made breakfast. He is a good cook. Today he made omelets with mushrooms and blue cheese. I sat down at the table with my omelet and Michael brought me the paper.
        “What are your plans today?” I ask Michael.
        “Oh, work as usual,” and he smiles. I always make a point of asking Michael about his work, although I know he does the same things everyday, but I think it makes him feel inferior to have to leave the house for life and I can just stay here. So I ask him. “And you?” Michael looks good when he eats. He has a thin mouth which opens very wide to let in food, and his tongue curls around the bottom of the fork when he puts it between his lips.
        “I am going to see Greta. She complained.”

Greta’s office was on the fifth floor of the National Press building in Long Street, and you could see three different bridges from the two corners of the room. She had framed Klimt copies on the walls and beads above the door. I sat and waited. Lisa the tea-girl brought me some tea. She smiled when she bent to put down the cup: “I like your poems.” Lisa the tea-girl always tells me she likes my poems. I don’t know whether she forgets that she has told me before, or whether it is just some dog-like instinct to bite and stay. But I say thanks anyway and ask her if I can put a CD into Greta’s magnificent hi-fi, and she says yes, but I couldn’t find anything I liked, so I sat down again and stroked my shoulder until Greta came in. She looked impressive. She came over to hug me. I like it when Greta hugs me, although I know she must hug all her other writers, it still makes me feel pretty good, and I resolve to go back home and write two million poems immediately.
“Listen, we have a problem.” A problem? “Unless you can give me a ready couple within the next week the Fund is going to withdraw that advance they gave you for your next book. Now, that is fine and all if you can do without it. But the question, my dear, is, can you?” I must have looked bewildered because Greta suddenly leapt up and knelt down next to my chair. “I don’t want to worry you, but, it has been two years since your last collection, dear, and people are going to forget. And I don’t want them to forget you.” I felt like the little girl she thought I looked like.
“Okay,” I said as merrily as possible and pushed her hand off my arm. I had suddenly lost all inspiration for those two million poems.

I sat in the living room and waited for Michael to come home. I watched the willow tree while I was waiting, and the pigeons in the birdbath, and the grass, and the pictures on the porch. A friend of Michael’s paints copies of great paintings onto tiles and fires them, and Michael bought a collection and tiled the back porch last year September. I still want some in the bathroom. Finally Michael came back.
“I have been waiting for you to come home.”
“How long have you been sitting there?”
“Since I came back from town.”
“When did you come back from town?”
“Just before lunch.”
“Have you eaten?”
“No.”
“I’ll make us something.” I love Michael. He takes really good care of me; I sometimes forget to eat. He brings chicken and steamed peaches. We eat quietly while the day goes down.

Michael put the record player on and we danced a bit to scratchy Nat King Cole.
“What did Greta say?”
“Mmm.”
“What? Sorry?”
“She said the Fund is going to take away my money if I don’t write something soon. She says they will forget me.”
“Who? The Fund?”
“No. The people.”
“Oh.”
I sat down on the floor. Michael sat down too and pushed my head into his lap. He stroked my hair like he sometimes does to calm me.
“I won’t leave my hair in the washbasin again,” I said after a while.

I waited for Michael to go to bed and then switched on the computer. A Monet desktop greeted me. I like Monet. Not too much, as I like Miro, or Cezanne, or Chagall, or Vlaminck, but enough. Michael loaded it down from the Internet for me some four months ago. I had forgotten it was there. I go into my poetry files and read some stuff. Then I open a new document and name it “Newpoems.” I wait for something to happen. Michael got up at around three.
“Come to bed,” he said, “You need some sleep.”
“There was half a cat on the N2 today, when I came back.” I continued talking while Michael switched off the computer and maneuvered me into the bedroom. “Not just a cat run over or anything, but half a cat. The front half. I even stopped to look for the other half next to the road, but there was nothing, and the head and everything was still perfect; there wasn’t even blood or anything.” Michael unbuttoned my dress and hung it over the back of the chair in front of the dressing table. I was watching him while I was talking. “Now where was the other half? Why was there just half a cat? The front paws and ribs and then nothing but a meaty end. I stopped, Michael, to look for the rest. It was a ginger cat, a small one, almost a baby, with fluffy white patches, and… Michael, listen to me!”
“I am listening,” he said and looked up for a brief moment from kissing my neck.
“I thought you wanted me to sleep?”
“No, not now.” He lifted my right leg by the knee.
“Michael! It was half a cat! There was nothing in the grass!”
“I know.”
I cried for a while, while Michael made love to me, and then was happy that Michael makes love to me.

Somehow I did not wake up when Michael left for work, but there were some bacon and fried tomatoes and two scones on the table, and the paper, and a frangipani from the blue tree outside the kitchen window. I wondered if Michael was going to leave me while I read the newspaper.

I called Greta at eleven. She wasn’t in. I called back at quarter-past, half-past, at ten past twelve, half-past two, quarter to three. Finally I dialed the secretary on the fifth floor. I had never called the secretary before although we often spoke while I waited for Greta: she has three children and a Labrador.
“I am sorry, but Ms Parker doesn’t come in on Thursdays.”
“Now howcome I never knew that?”
“I honestly don’t know. This arrangement has been standing since Ms Parker started working here.”
“And just when did Ms Parker start working there?” I asked sarcastically.
“She’s been here for about twelve years now, I think.” Twelve years! Twelve years ago I was finishing high school. I put down the phone. I washed the dishes, rinsed and dried them. I stacked them on the shelf and put the cups in the cupboard. I took all the sheets off the bed and put them in the washing machine. Then I phoned Michael. He sounded busy.
“Are you having an affair?” I asked at last.
“God! No!”
“Oh.”
“Where does this come from? Is something wrong?”
“No.”
“What’s going on? Should I come home?”
“No, it’s fine. Nothing. Nothing. I’ll see you just now anyway.”
When I went to fetch the sheets I noticed I forgot to turn the machine on.

“I don’t know, okay. I was just wondering.” Michael didn’t believe me. I could tell. He was cleaning his teeth with his tongue and his eyes were so sharp I felt almost as if I should feel frightened. “I tried to phone Greta but she wasn’t in, and the secretary told me she never came in on Thursdays and I did not even know it was Thursday, and then I phoned you because I finished the dishes and then I just wondered. Why don’t you?”
“What?”
“Why don’t you have an affair. There are lots of women out there ten times more beautiful than I am. Do you hate me?”
“What? No, of course I don’t.”
“Well?”
“Do you want me to?” He looked hurt now. I thought about the cat. Maybe I did not want this.
“I don’t think so, no. The Fund will take away my money. And what about your poetry? And my hair?”
Michael took me by the arm and led me to the study. Then we stand in front of the frame for a long time. I don’t know what to say, so I just stand there playing with my one ear: the outside shell fits perfectly into the hollow, and it gets covered up and warm while I touch it.
“You can phone Greta tomorrow and sort something out. I am sure you can. And what about all the poems you wrote last year?”
“They’re no good.”

I gave Michael a thick Emily Dickinson book for his birthday in March. I looked for it while he showered, found it on the kitchen bookshelf and sat down on the bed waiting for him to come out.
“Have you read any of this yet?” I asked and he said no, not yet, and I put my chin on my knee. “When you do this and move your head around your knee makes funny sounds,” I said, and Michael got onto the bed and put his chin on my knee. It felt ticklish.
“Mmm,” he whispered, “you are quite right, madam.”
Then he lay down around me with his wet hair and boxer shorts and asked me to read some for him so that he might be educated. I laughed. I was glad Michael wasn’t having any affairs. This was much better than the Fund or Greta or work. I had never read Michael any poetry before because I cannot read very well, but he said he liked me reading, and I liked it too tonight, so we stayed up until after twelve.
“I don’t feel sorry for her,” Michael says before we go to sleep. “I wonder if that is right?”

As soon as Michael is out of the driveway I decide to get drunk and start mixing gin and tonics. I use all the wineglasses in the house and all the ice-cubes from the fridge, and when I run out of tonic I put in lemonade. I drink until I feel very strong and then I phone Greta. When Greta picks up I shout really loudly, so that she can hear me clearly, because I might be slurring – my tongue felt red enough for it, “Fuck the Fund, Greta! Fuck the Fund!” and then I dance around in the study and expose myself indecently in front of my framed certificate. It was fun until Michael came home.

I am lucky to have someone like Michael. As soon as I saw him through the study window, walking across the grass in his nice suit and yellow shirt, and wearing the Peanuts-tie my mother bought him for Christmas, I started panicking, crying, and Michael came in and held me very tightly, then shouted at me for a while and told me how much he loves me. Then he washed my face, and brushed my hair in front of the bathroom mirror.
“I told Greta to go to hell I think. And I stood naked in front of my Bloomsbury Award. It was stupid.”
“It’s okay. I don’t think those old fogies from the Award will ever know.” He looked at me through the mirror. “And personally I would have loved to see it.”
“Will you help me e-mail some poems to Greta later, please. Maybe it is not too late?”
“Mmm,” he said. Michael should never shave, otherwise he would lose his mumble. He put his hand on my stomach: “I’ll go make us something to eat,” and turned me around to kiss my nose. I could smell his cigarettes through my gin. I splash my burning eyes with water until I cannot see anything, and wait for the time to pass. The first thing I notice is the spidery hair clogging the drain again, and then Michael calls from the kitchen. I touch my left breast to see if it is still there.

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