kagablog

From The Life of Henry Fuckit, 1950-2015

When Henry was packing up his possessions before vacating his room at the YMCA he came across a grimy envelope serving as a bookmark. It jutted from the Gideons Bible that he had found in the drawer of the bedside table when he first moved in. In the past few months he had often browsed, especially through the Old Testament, and made cryptic notes on both sides of the envelope. On the back were Harry Bergson’s name and phone number circled in pencil, forming an island in the sea of scribbles. He remembered his strange dream and thought, I must really give this man a call one day. He replaced the bookmark in Jonah, at the point where the reluctant emissary tells God, for the second time, he doesn’t want to be involved in His petty squabble with the recalcitrant breekers down at Ninevah. Thoughtfully he weighed the book in his hand and then packed it away. He needed a Bible and the idea of stealing one appealed to him.

It would be inaccurate to say he moved into the Bedford Street house in Observatory because Ivor arranged for him to lodge not within the ramshackle double-storey residence itself but in a disused pigeon loft above the outbuilding at the back of the property.

“Now that the summer heat is safely behind us I am sure you’ll be very comfortable up here.” Solicitous of his manservant’s welfare he helped Henry to sweep out the cobwebs, dust, droppings and feathers before hoisting a mattress through the trapdoor. “I envy you your snug privacy here. You might have difficulty enticing female guests up this ladder but feel free to wank as much as you like. Did you know it was the Egyptians who first domesticated the pigeon four and a half thousand years ago? Discovered the homing instinct and put it to use. Fascinating. Release a pigeon in the middle of nowhere and up it flies to a suitable height, circles about and somehow orientates itself, and then heads straight for home at a steady seventy or eighty miles an hour. And remember, never forget to extinguish candle or lamp before drifting into sweet slumber.”

Henry was to receive free board and lodging at the student house and in return was to prepare breakfast and dinner when required, and to wash Ivor’s dirty linen in an aged twin tub washing machine. They both agreed that ironing, like shaving, was an idiotic waste of energy and time. In addition to these domestic duties he was to accompany the undergraduate to lectures, carrying his books, taking notes and assisting him with research and the writing of essays. He did not view any of this as “work”, having to prepare food and do washing for himself anyway, and being insatiable in his eclectic desire for knowledge. For more than two years it proved a most satisfactory arrangement.

*

There were five bedrooms, all spacious and well-proportioned with high ceilings, tall sash windows and creaking timber floors. The dining room contained a long table with eight chairs and a sideboard against one wall. There was an open fireplace in the sitting room and there were two divans and a battered green lounge suite of advanced age which could seat seven in varying degrees of comfort, and discomfort, depending on one’s ability to avoid the broken springs. The kitchen and scullery were mean and cramped, having been designed for the use of servants. The plumbing was inadequate and the electrical wiring was antiquated and overloaded, resulting in frequent blowing of fuses. On such occasions when the house was plunged into sudden stygian silence the brief cessation of sound was always followed by loud shouts of rage and streams of anti-Semitic invective directed at the landlord. (At a later stage Mr Isodore Slick was to pay dearly for having caused his tenants this recurrent inconvenience.)

The Thompson brothers, who each had a room upstairs, were in no hurry to graduate and leave behind a life of happy-go-lucky simplicity. Joe, the elder, was in his sixth year of study, having successfully completed three years of a four-year Geology degree. Steve was three years younger. He had passed his first year after only two years study and was making cautious headway into the second year of a five-year degree in Architecture.

Mike de Jongh was in his third year of Dentistry. A diligent student, tall and athletic, he played first team rugby, showered and shaved a lot, and was thoroughly unBohemian in behaviour and appearance. He had the room at the top of the stair opposite that of the only female resident.

Kaye Goldblatt instilled fear in most men. Of average height her body was shapely - nice ass, nice tits, flat belly. But she made no effort to show it off, wearing dowdily functional clothes, and fixing her long black hair in a tight bun at the back of her head. Her spectacles were black-rimmed and thick-lensed so it was not easy to read emotion in her dark eyes. She had the sallow complexion of a heavy smoker and because her features were in an almost habitual state of reflective repose her general demeanour was perceived as saturnine. She was reputed to be a genius, having completed in two years a four-year honours degree in English and Philosophy. She was now in her second year at Medical School, achieving excellent marks with minimal effort, disdaining attendance of most lectures.

Ian Martin’s controversial novel Pop-splat is now available from http://www.pop-splat.co.za.