Six months later Mother came home from a church meeting and announced they had started an outreach programme. She said that every family was going to welcome a stranger into their home for supper.
We’re lucky, she said, We could have gotten that Kloppers woman who can’t swallow, but now we just have a lonely boy from school.
He stinks! I said.
And here comes the Da Vinci moment, said Father.
Mother crossed her arms and smiled like an angel.
We are all equal, she said. Somewhere a choir started singing.
But they were dead silent on the night of the supper. We were sitting at the table, waiting for our food. Mother was sitting in the back yard, talking to our guest. When she finally came into the kitchen, she was slightly squint, holding on to the wall. But she kept her smile. Behind her was Hyena Breath.
So where do you live? asked Father.
That lovely house behind the bakery, said Mother.
What do your parents do? asked Father.
They’re not together, said Mother, His mother is with somebody new. Let’s eat.
So who lives behind the bakery? asked Father.
He lives there with his mother and his new father, said Mother, The other one travels. Have some peas.
Hyena Breath sat down next to me. He put some peas on his plate and looked at them. Then he looked at us.
My father has been all over the world, he said, He sends me pictures from the newspapers. He’s the Butterfly Man.
Is that a medical condition? asked Father.
He’s with a circus, said Hyena Breath, He shoots from a cannon. Then he turns into a butterfly.
It must be fun to have two fathers, said Father, One on the ground and one in the air.
You go and live with a stranger, said Mother, Then you come tell us how much fun it is.
I looked at Hyena Breath.
Do you go to the circus a lot? I asked.
No, he said, My mother says it’s unhealthy to be around people in tights. And she never wants to see a caravan again. So I just speak to my father when he phones.
And your new father, what does he do? asked Father.
He makes money, said Hyena Breath, And he wears suits. And he has a lot of rules.
Rules are good, said Father, It shows you people care. They want you to grow up the right way.
Hyena Breath pushed back his plate.
When too many people look after you, nobody notices you, he said, They all think the other ones will ask you what you want. It’s like a tree, they sit against you, they walk past you, but they don’t look at you. One day I will travel with my father and see the world and maybe live with the circus. There you can be what you want. And nobody feels sorry for you.
And at that moment Kelvin Booyens’s breath stopped smelling bad. He turned back into a beautiful boy with dark skin and pitch-black hair.
Never again has bad breath or lonely people bothered me. In fact, when I run into them, I’m a little bit jealous. I think, wow, there goes another one, he probably has a dad with tights and wings.
When I was 14
When I was 14 years old my cousin Rupert came to live with us. He was not like the rest of us, he came from the city and looked like the people in the magazines I took to the bathroom every time I had to deal with my changing body.
When we asked why he had come to live with us, Mother said we shouldn’t ask questions about the family and that he had no way of knowing the diamonds he had sold to those Japanese people were fake.
I thought he was a bus driver, said Father.
They were looking for souvenirs, said Mother, You can’t be rude to overseas people.
I would have bought unlabelled chemicals from Rupert. I had never met anybody like that. He smoked cigarettes and walked around the house in cowboy boots and a pair of jeans that changed my outlook on life completely. Sometimes when my parents were not in the house he would speak on the phone and use bad words and say things that made me run into my room and bite into my desk so as not to cry out from joy.
It was like discovering the earth was round.
Every day Rupert opened new worlds to me and I followed him like a shadow. I even started forgetting about the day in the revival tent.
Just before Rupert had arrived, Father took us to the tent at the railway crossing. He said he heard the man was really good and maybe we needed a change. The tent was filled with plastic chairs and people with desperate expressions. People I had known for years were behaving strangely. They put their hands in the air and starting waving like they saw an aeroplane. A man with a microphone and a Memphis wig sang eight songs in the same key and then he screamed we should all be like babies. Father started crying. Then he took off his clothes and ran to the front, screaming, Wash me! Wash me!
I was at that period in life where you wanted to see everybody on the planet naked except your family. The sight of my father running naked through a possessed congregation filled me with emotions that will never be resolved in this life.
When I told Rupert about the tent, he smiled in a way I did not know was possible.
Then one night we were having supper when Mother asked Rupert to pass the peas. As Rupert put his hand out he looked at Father.
So, he said, I heard you let the old banger out for Elvis.
We immediately realised something memorable was about to happen and stopped eating. Father turned as white as mash and looked at Rupert.
I beg your pardon, he said.
Rupert put his arm around my shoulder. My friend here tells me you showed your sins to the world, he said, That is wild.
Father said nothing. He took me to my room and beat me like we were living in a trailer. I thought I was going to faint but I did not make a sound. That night Rupert came into my room and asked me if I wanted a cigarette. I asked him if we could go away. The next night we got onto the bus and drove to a town I’d never been before. There we had breakfast, saw a movie and then Rupert bought me a pair of jeans that must have been sewn by Satan and every slut in the world. Turning around in front of that mirror was the sexiest, most deliciously sinful moment of my life. Then I burst into tears and asked Rupert to phone my parents.
It was evening when they finally drove into town. I turned around and Rupert was gone.
I got into the car and for hours nobody spoke. Until Mother got the sandwiches out. Then she turned around and looked at me.
There are no rules, she said, Everybody finds Jesus their own way.
When I was 15
When I was 15 years old my father called me into the kitchen and told me that although they were churchgoers, my mother was pregnant again. He said that my music lessons were costing them a lot of money and if I wanted to continue, I would have to get a job during the holidays.
Just two weeks before that our schoolteacher had told us that it was much easier for attractive people to find work, but if the ugly ones tried really hard, they would find work too, although there would be emotional scarring.
I wasn’t sure what I looked like. Because I was a gifted child I had to practise the piano