The Fetch. Finuala Dowling

      There was work he should be doing, but it was pleasant, sitting here on the warm and threadbare couch. He would work again tomorrow. Right now he wanted to think.

      After a while he got up and fetched a sheet of paper and a pen. Using a hard-backed atlas to press on, he headed the page with the words Why I would make a good sperm donor.

      He looked at the words, and then underlined them.

      At five in the afternoon Nina walked across the flat, grassy sea frontage of Slangkop towards Neville’s caravan park. The park’s wooden clubhouse served as bar and shop, and was also the venue for community forum meetings. Nina was the first to arrive.

      A couple sat at a window table, eating, but otherwise the restaurant side of things was empty. Sharon was at work in the shop section. She directed Nina outside. On the deck, her husband Neville was moving three tables together in preparation for the meeting.

      “I think the weather is balmy enough,” he said. “In any case, Sharon and Mrs Fawkes will want to smoke. Now, what else do we need? A drink!”

      Nina said she’d fetch the water jug and glasses. In her present state of nerves she feared that she would gulp down any wine offered.

      Neville came with her to the bar nook and poured himself a brandy and Coke while Nina counted tumblers onto a tray and filled the jug. They were about to head outside again when one of the customers at the window table signalled to Neville. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but my wife has just pointed out that there’s a cockroach on the wall behind me.”

      “No problem,” said Neville. Fetching a can of Doom from beneath the bar counter, he made his way across the restaurant to the customers. Once in position, Neville protected the customer’s left ear, by gently cupping it with his one hand, while with his other he sprayed until the cockroach dropped dead.

      “Sorted,” said Neville. He retrieved his drink, picked up a discarded newspaper and led the way outside.

      Nina and Neville sat down at the joined-up tables.

      “What a pleasure,” said Neville, taking his first sip. The sun was still hot despite the lateness of the afternoon, but now the tide was in and the air had been refreshed with a cold salty bath.

      Neville ignored the headlines and went straight to an article titled World’s largest penis sets off alarm. He insisted on reading the story aloud to Nina. Her response evidently didn’t satisfy him. He had to hail his wife. “Sharon,” he called. “Listen to this.”

      “I’m busy with a customer!” she shouted.

      Neville looked across the grass of the caravan park, towards Chas’s place. Nina followed his gaze. The woman who’d summoned Chas inside earlier, the one in the sarong, was stepping off the stoep of Midden House, heading for the tidal pool.

      “He’ll be screwing her later,” said Neville. “Some guys get all the luck.”

      It’s as if I’m not here, Nina thought. She turned and peered into the café. Sharon was trying to get rid of the last customers of the day.

      “Hurry up now and make up your mind,” she said to the children who were dithering about which sweets to buy. “We’re closing up now-now for a private meeting.” But when she spotted their father choosing a bag of firewood, she immediately changed her tone. “Let me know if you need any help,” she called out coquettishly, leaning across the counter and smiling at him.

      But all he wanted was the usual – firelighters, wood, disposable gas canisters and fizzy drinks. Sharon finished ringing up the camper’s purchases and joined her husband and Nina on the deck.

      “Did you see the way that guy looked at me?” Sharon asked Neville.

      “How’m I supposed to see how he’s looking at you when I’m sitting out here? I don’t have eyes in the back of my head.”

      “He had a good eyeball straight down my cleavage,” said Sharon, adjusting the straps of her summer vest and pulling in her tummy. She followed her husband’s gaze across to Midden House.

      “Is the lord of the manor planning to grace us with his presence this evening, I wonder?” asked Neville.

      “Looks like quite a party going on that side already,” replied Sharon. “Getting ready for an orgy later.”

      “They should get in this guy,” said Neville, pointing to the newspaper article. “Hey, Shar, what d’you think? Security at the airport, they see this bulge in this guy’s pants, and they want to pat him down, y’know …”

      But Sharon wasn’t listening. “I can’t work out if he’s straight or gay.”

      “Hell, man, Sharon, the guy’s been married for years. To a very highly sexed lady. Though I suppose you might ask why she’s scarpered.”

      “You might well ask. Sometimes when I’m watching him at the pool, the way he floats there on a Lilo with a cup and saucer on his tummy, my gay-dar is up. But then, other times, I can see him looking at me in that way, you know, like he’s been hit with a hormone handbag.”

      “Then you want to pat him down like the security staff in this article I’ve been reading …”

      But Sharon had seen Fundiswa approaching. She called out a greeting: “Molo, sisi!”

      “Good afternoon,” said Fundiswa, coming up the wooden steps to the deck a little out of breath. “Whew! I’m unfit! My exercise regime starts tomorrow.”

      “… and then they sprinkle it with powder, y’know, to check whether it’s a biological threat! A biological threat!” Neville wiped away tears as he reread this.

      “You going to gym?” asked Sharon.

      “Too expensive,” said Fundiswa. “Nina and I are going to start jogging tomorrow morning.”

      Sharon looked the two other women over from head to toe. “I must say I’m lucky with this body of mine. I don’t put on weight. This body of mine has never let me down.”

      She swept her hand from her chest to her denim-clad thighs, inviting their gaze.

      “That’s lucky for you,” said Fundiswa. “I can honestly say that this body of mine has let me down at every possible opportunity. I look at a vetkoek and I get fat. Used to be I looked at a man and I got pregnant, but, thank the Lord, those days are over.”

      “I know what you mean about the pregnancy thing. I fell pregnant with Dylan the very first time I ever had sex. Floyd, well, we used a condom but I had such kickass Kegel muscles down there that I actually took his condom off while we were at it.”

      “Excessive pelvic toning leads to unwanted pregnancy,” chirped Neville, trying to enter Sharon’s conversation since she’d failed to enter his.

      “Please educate your sons,” said Fundiswa. “Otherwise they will come home like mine did with all these motherless babies that I was supposed to feed and educate. I said, ‘Who do you think I am? I’m not a bladdy child grant!’ But they’re all the same. I ask my sons the same question that I used to ask my lovers: ‘Why do you refuse to wear a condom?’ Each and every one said: ‘Fundi, I’m a man who doesn’t like to wear a condom. I’m sorry, but it isn’t nice for me if I’m wearing a gumboot.’ Nx! Each one thinks he’s so unique when he says that. He says it like he is the only man in the world who doesn’t want to wear a bloody rubber jacket!”

      “Ja,” said Neville. “No man likes to wear a sleeping bag, that’s the honest truth.”

      Nina was feeling quite safe as the invisible member of the conversation. Then Sharon’s eyes landed upon her. “That’s a pretty dress you’ve got on,” she said. “The red patterning around the scoop of the neck creates a pretty frame.”

      Nina sat very still, hoping something or someone else would catch Sharon’s attention, but she seemed fixated.