Wolf, Wolf by Eben Venter

Author:Eben Venter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Published: 2015-01-28T05:00:00+00:00

He’d fallen into an unusually deep sleep after a failed attempt at vividly calling up the flank in the rugby photo, second row, third from the right, for the kind of stimulation that made him realise the value of internet porn. He was still thinking of this when he’d apparently drifted off again on the single bed with its second-rate mattress and yellow floral sheets, then woken early. Now he’s up and about in the balmy February morning, up the mountain among the spekboom where he hop-skip-and-jumps to the flat rock where his pile of marker stones has been tossed about, as he’d expected.

Two messages come through on his iPhone, each with a photo. Another one of Jack and Jamie, which is to say emotional blackmail, and the second is a mysterious one of Jack in front of their gate at number nine Poinsettia Road. Both messages are cryptic, the gate one says: Look who came calling. It’s impossible to get clarity on Jack’s motives. Behind and above him he hears baboons beginning to go about their business. From here, there’s nothing he can do with the messages, he’s not even going to reply to them. He’s not going to get jealous, that would be out of character for him, and he won’t get upset or whatever. He switches off his mobile phone, starts running downhill as fast as he can without losing his step; if he sprains an ankle, he can’t open on Wednesday.

All the way down to Uncle Hannes’s rondavel with the barking dogs, he runs, and smells the coffee. Uncle Hannes says he’s been waiting for him. Uncle Hannes is wearing sunglasses even though he’s indoors; he’s dressed in his usual uniform of flapping turn-ups, pale-pink shirt and cravat, his bald head lightly oiled: ‘You can still be handsome if you try, Uncle Hannes,’ to which his uncle smiles, putting his cup of coffee with two aniseed rusks in the saucer in front of him. The dogs have the freedom of the house and lie down wherever they like, on the chairs or on the lynx-pelt bedspread on his bed, a rickety old thing. Just not on his lap when he’s dressed like this – Uncle Hannes chucks off a small one that tries its luck.

Even though it’s not real coffee, it’s good. His current reading matter with its guinea fowl feather bookmark lies on the coffee table – F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Uncle Hannes notices him taking it all in and winks. He says he’s been thinking about Mattheüs’s visit; there’s more than enough time here in the Karoo to reflect, and has decided to share something with him this time that he’s always kept to himself. He doesn’t look at Mattheüs while he talks, then he gets up, opens the drawer of the dresser and takes out a framed photo. He says he trusts Mattheüs because, after all, he knows about him and Jack, how things are between them. Mattheüs must please remember

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.