Stronger Than Lions - 10. In The Valley Of The Tea-Coloured Waters

Scripture tells us that on the third day, God separated land from sea. We were anything but separated on this morning. It was nearly ten when we stirred and disentangled ourselves from each other. The smell of bacon frying wafted up from downstairs.

‘Shit,’ I exclaimed, still thick with sleep as I glanced at my watch on the nightstand. The air was cool against my skin as I sat up: I was buck-naked.

‘Morning, sexy,’ said Chris, stretching. He reached down and scratched his balls.

‘Don’t mind me.’

‘As if you don’t say hello to your lads in the morning.’ He scooted up to me and poked me in the ribs.

‘Ow. We’ve got to get up or Rob and Bella are going to send out a search party.’

We dressed quickly and went downstairs.

‘It's a fucking miracle, you’re finally up,’ said Bella as we paced into the kitchen.

There was a formidable spread on the kitchen table.

‘C’mon, grub’s up,’ said Rob, who had already assembled himself a leaning tower of pancakes.

While I wolfed down, I noticed Rob and Bella whispering to each other. They got up and fetched bread from the counter and popped some into the toaster. They sat down again. Bella drummed her fingers on the table and eyed Chris and I lazily.

‘So,’ she said slowly, ‘are you boys officially a couple now, or do Rob and I need to give you a bit more time on your own to work that out?’

Chris dropped his orange juice and spilt it in his lap. 'Fuck,’ he cried, trying to mop up the mess.

I sat, frozen, my eyes locked on Rob, who was looking extremely bored.

‘Here,’ said Bella, handing Chris a serviette. ‘You two still haven’t answered my question.’

I tried to speak but my tongue was a lump of lead.

‘Guys,’ said Bella. ‘Calm thy testicles, both of you. Rob and I want you to know it’s okay. We get it.’

Rob put down his fork. ‘I’m like totally cool if you guys are, well, you know, more than friends,’ he said through mouthfuls of pancake. ‘I mean, it’s all new for me, but, it's a yes from me.’

I cleared my throat. ‘How…’ I managed, ‘how did you guys know?’

Bella let out a sigh. ‘Oh my God, Cal. How long have I known you? I didn't need X-ray vision to see through your admittedly valiant attempts of pretending you're just friends. Your faces light up when you’re in each other’s company. Any more lingering sideways glances from the two of you and we'd all be living in a telenovela.’

‘Yeah,’ said Rob, stuffing another forkful into his mouth. ‘At first I was jealous, but then I figured you weren’t replacing me, you’d just found, well, um, a boyfriend.’

‘I'm curious though,’ Bella continued. ‘How long did it actually take you two to get the fact that you were both into each other? And what makes me think that it only happened this weekend?’

Chris and I looked at each other and then back at Bella.

‘It was very amusing seeing you two yesterday, trying so goddamn hard not be close to each other for our apparent benefit. Hilarious, but unnecessary.'

'Actually, it was torture for me,' said Rob. 'I was like would you two kiss already because the suspense was driving me nuts.’

I was holding onto the kitchen table because it felt like I was being strapped into a rollercoaster whose height and declination I had underestimated. ‘You guys really mean you’re okay with this?’ I asked.

‘I’ll be honest,’ said Rob, who had finally swallowed and was cleaning crumbs off his T-shirt. ‘It’s gonna take me a bit of getting used to, but hey, Cal. You’ve been so happy lately. I like to see you happy. And I know that Chris makes you happy.’

‘You guys are the best,’ I said, overwhelmed.

‘Um, Chris?’ said Rob, looking at him and pointing to me. ‘I think your man needs a hug.’

Chris folded his arms around me. ‘Oh my, that's cute,' said Bella. 'Definitely cute. And, bonus, I'm finally a certified fag hag!'’

Rob palmed his face. ‘Jesus H Christ, Carmichael. You have no tact. None.’

‘Oh don’t mind me,’ she said, giggling. ‘I’m not implying you two have to now start singing Broadway show tunes and take me shoe-shopping. Somehow I think you two would fail spectacularly at those.’

'Hey, you've never heard me do Ursula from The Little Mermaid,' said Chris, sounding mildly incensed. And with that, I knew the four of us were going to be okay. More than okay.

It was the rest of the world I was still worried about.

* * *

It took some getting used to, holding hands in company. A tinge of sadness swept through me as I realized the weekend was ending. It wouldn’t be this easy back in civilization. Right now we were safe, and I held onto this as best I could.

The four of us followed the trail down to the waterfall and discovered that one could swim in the pool it dropped into with relative safety. It was much colder than the lake, but surrounded by forest, and braced by the icy, foaming tea-coloured water, I thought of how many faces Africa has: Savanna, mountains, forest, desert, even snow. I may be white, I may be descended from a mongrel mix of Scots, Irish, French Huguenot and Dutch explorer, but I’ve always felt the rusty earth of this continent had seeped into my nascent flesh long before my bones were knit.

We drove back on Sunday afternoon. Bella was all Audrey Hepburn with sunglasses and her head in a scarf while Rob passed out on the back seat, his face mushed against the window, drooling. I had my hand on Chris’s lap as we entered the city limits. At the airport the shacks and informal settlements came into view, and I saw a mother with a child on her back bending down to fetch water. Our eyes met and I felt incredibly awkward.

I was who I was, a white boy nestled cosily in a green suburb, purely by an accident of history. I could have been her. Yet here we were both ‘in Africa’. Next to the woman a thin little dog jogged at her heels, and she bent down to pat the mongrel on his back.

‘What’s wrong, Cal?’ said my boyfriend, sensing I had gone quiet.

‘I’ve never really paid attention to all the shacks out here... so many people live in them. Like, I don’t know what it’s like not to have electricity and water. And the country’s been free for more than a decade but you look at that and think there’s been so little progress.’

‘It’s like that in Durban too. KwaMashu stretches for miles around the city.’

‘Sometimes I feel so...’

‘Guilty?’

‘Yeah,’

‘Ja, I know what you mean. But my mom says guilt doesn’t help any situation after the fact unless you do something about it.’

‘But what?’

‘You can be grateful for what you have. Use what you are given, use it to give back. Yeah I know that sounds very surfer Jesus but, I dunno. I fucked a lot of shit up last year but the world’s given me a second chance. It’s given me you, for one thing, and I’m not going to fuck that up, buddy.’

‘You say it like it’s so easy,’ I said, fixing my eyes again on the little dog getting smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror.

‘Starting is easy at least, Cal. You make me want to believe in good things.’

‘You’re too much,’ I said, shaking my head.

I was sad. I thought of the little dog: one of so many who were loved and treasured among people who had so little. Where did they take them when they got ill? I closed my eyes, uncomfortable in my hypocrisy—just last week I’d fed Einstein a tin of salmon.

When Chris dropped me off at my house, it hit me: we had to say goodbye to each other now, even if we were only going to be separated for a few hours of darkness. My own bed would feel so lonely. I felt the ache of being in love for the first time as he gave me a stolen kiss in my room, my dad downstairs.

‘Bye, sexy,’ he said as he got back into The Thing. ‘I’ll miss you.’

‘Me too,’ I said. ‘We’re pathetic aren’t we?’

‘Yup. It's wonderful.’

That night, I googled the average cost of a tin of salmon, multiplied that by forty—it was still Lent, after all—and resolved to donate that to a charity.