Homemaking for the Down-At-Heart. Finuala Dowling

The house had definitely changed for the better in the two years since Margot’s boyfriend moved in. Sash windows, once jammed shut with layers of enamel paint, now slid open with ease. Beetle-eaten cupboard doors had become winter firewood as Curtis slowly fixed the neglected house. But there was always more to do.

      “The front door is jamming again,” he’d said to Curtis recently. “We should do something about it.” That very evening he’d come home after doing a reading for the wealthy Cleatons and found Curtis with sandpaper in hand.

      Margot was more peaceful with Curtis here. She was difficult to live with at the best of times, though; got het up over small things. She complained about his polony roll in the fridge. Why, he did not know. If she would only slow down, sit quietly, then he could put his hand on her shoulder and absorb some of her negative energy into himself. But she walked fast through the house, picking up newspapers and mugs with an aura that said, Don’t touch me.

      Mr Morland did not believe that Curtis would stay. He had heard Curtis recite “The Song of Wandering Aengus”. That was a poem for a man who liked sleeping under the stars. Mr Morland had read Curtis’s palm and had seen its wavering heart line. Curtis had a craftsman’s hands: tanned, calloused, nicked. One of his fingers was lame, its top joint permanently bent down and the nail missing, though not from woodworking gone wrong. An old snake injury, apparently. Mr Morland stretched out his own left hand: it was cool, slender and white, with thin, tapering digits. At this very moment, his index finger was tipped with butter. He wiped it on the tea towel.

      Since he was the only one awake in the sleeping house, Mr Morland went into the study to use Margot’s computer. He sucked on a toothpick while he looked up his favourite Internet sites. He liked the thought of an Asian girlfriend. She would understand him, and not mind about wet bath mats or large plastic-wrapped polony rolls. She would hang out the former, and replace the latter with tasty stir-fries. Or, if he didn’t want to give up polony, she would understand. He typed in “Thai dating” and Google returned hundreds of thousands of results. The girls were pretty; they were innocent-looking but also quite naughty. He watched a clip of two girls massaging each other with oil. He felt that they wanted him to watch, and to derive pleasure from watching, which he did.

      Curtis dreamt that cattle thieves crossed the Lesotho border, cut the fence of his father’s farm and stole the Ngunis and the newly arrived dairy cows. He woke in a panic. What if Jacob Zuma became president? Alarm sent his heart sprinting. He wrapped the cuff of his blood pressure monitor around his wrist and pressed start. The reading came up on the digital face – 182/110! Should he ask Mr Morland to drive him to False Bay Hospital? Perhaps not. Last time this happened (199/103), his blood pressure had dropped back close to normal in Mr Morland’s car as they headed towards Outpatients.

      Mr Morland had been unaffected by the lateness of the hour, or Curtis’s panic when he shook him awake in his La-Z-Boy. “No, man, fine. Of course,” he’d said. Mr Morland usually slept in his tracksuit pants and T-shirt, so he’d been ready to go. He’d held the steering wheel lightly with one hand, his relaxed posture emphasised by the slight recline of his driver’s seat. “You’re in the departure lounge of life, hoping that your plane will be delayed,” he’d joked.

      Curtis had laughed and felt healed. Was that all it was? Mr Morland had touched him, too, lightly on the wrist with his long white fingers – hardly a touch even, just letting his fingertips hover over Curtis’s pulse.

      It was the farm that was making his heart sprint. He must write to the old man or phone him. He would set out a last-minute plan for the pasture. The lands were brown, only roughly ploughed and still awaiting harrowing, liming, fertilising, seeding. The dairy contract – if his father would only agree to take the cows on – turned on weight gain. But how would the Jersey and Friesian heifers gain weight without pasture? His father would overlook this fact. He would keep spending the notional earnings, living off the happily calculated profit of hundreds of calves at R150 per calf per month. But without pasture, the dairy’s money would have to go on feed purchased from the co-op. Then his father would say, “You see, that’s why I prefer a sturdy indigenous breed!”

      Since he could not sleep, he might as well get up. He slid quietly past the sleeping Margot. The feint-ruled page of his mind listed this day’s tasks: make porridge, contact the old man, work in the garden and, if he only could, make a difference. But first, exercise. He stood on the scale: seventy-five kilograms exactly. It never changed. On his way downstairs he greeted Mr Morland, who was furtively emerging from the study. In the kitchen, Curtis poured himself a cup of water and ate a banana. He placed the younger man’s buttery knife in the sink and the smeared tea towel in the washing machine to await the next load. He laced his running shoes and apologised to Bella: “Your turn later, old girl.”

      Outside it was still dark. The night’s high tide had left a salty film over the foliage and parked cars. Fishing boats were puttering out towards Hangklip and Cape Point, their lights gleaming through the morning mist. An owl hooted sweetly from the chimney top as Curtis stretched his muscles in preparation for his morning run.

      Good. If he set out late on a Sunday he was liable to find his path blocked by people who were there for the view, or trying desperately to reduce their weight by lumbering two abreast towards a deli breakfast in Kalk Bay. At this hour he was alone except for an occasional cyclist flashing by in reflective shoes.

      Curtis started down the stone steps from the old house. He could not get used to living here, perpendicular to the sea. And the sea itself not a clear view, but criss-crossed with telephone wires and jostling roofs. The farm boy within wanted the open plain and an uninterrupted horizon. He needed an overgrown river bank and, leading to it, the kind of dirt road so remote that passing vehicles halt for a greeting.

      He started to run, not too fast though, because this steep downhill section could damage the knees. Because it had won no prizes, Curtis did not rate his body highly. Yet every morning he woke with a sense that his muscles were asking him: “What, Curtis, what? Push us. See if you can find our limit.” His body was like a tenor who knows he can sing an A above top C, but who’s only asked for top C. Though he was a humble man in most respects, he noticed with something like condescension that other men of his age preferred to sit on benches; that they limped or stayed at home. Six decades on and his heart still keenly pumped extra oxygen and glucose to his thighs and calves; his lungs took in volumes of air without complaint. He moved lightly over the morning pavements.

      Six pairs of white bloomers hung on a line on the balcony that overlooked the park. He jogged past the swings and then turned left and down the cobbles past the French bakery. He could smell the artisan bread baking on its racks and see the bakers leaning on the counter, talking over a first cup of coffee. On the kerb at the bottom of Rosmead Road, someone had left out their Monday trash on a Sunday. Dogs or vagrants had strewn the contents. Bad for Jo’s business. Perhaps he could come down later with a pair of rubber gloves. Round the corner, the car park waited quietly for its surfers and Anglicans. Beyond the rusty fence, the sea looked cold and churned up. Two homeless people lay asleep in the doorway of the community centre.

      Helga in skintight Lycra swung onto the pavement ahead of him, at the dangerous corner where Quarterdeck Road joins Main. What a treat to have Helga’s bright, blonde ponytail and perfect bottom in front of him! She was so honed – a thoroughly drilled body. He would like to see her naked. His stride was too long: he would have to overtake.

      He enquired politely after Helga’s health. When she smiled at him, he felt the old molecular pull on his glands. The vein in his temple pulsed. His body lay in wait for his next thought. Almost certainly, he was about to say something cheeky. Why not? He had made no pledge to Margot. He was free, except that when you have lived for a length of time with someone you are not free. He felt he could not mention Misty’s name at home, for example. But he was free. It was not that he did not adore Margot. It was just that sometimes you met another person, and you were drawn to the new person. He had as good as told her. Right at the beginning, he had given her a greeting card with a picture of a gaucho riding into the sunset. The card was unequivocal in its message. Margot surely understood what he meant by that picture. He still wanted to see other women naked. There were good scientific reasons why men had to be this way,