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The Blonde

I was sitting opposite the SaSas Bar writing her life story when the Blonde came over to me.

“What are you writing?”

“Your life story.”

“How does it end?”

“Like it started, tragicomically.”

“Sounds familiar, do I have a say in how it works out?”

“Sit down, buy me a drink, we’ll find out.”

Later on, when we were naked, she asked me shyly if I really cared about her or if it was all just sex.

“Don’t confuse matters honey, I really care about your sex.”

Then she did her magic number, wrapped her ankles behind her ears and made those little flappy bits talk to me. It was good.

Afterwards we both smoked Blackstone Cherries and I ran my hand through her long blonde hair. It didn’t last long. But it was something.

Years later we bumped into each other at the Killarney Mall. She still looked good. We had coffee at Alfredo’s. Her hair was shorter, eyes a little sadder.

We talked about irrelevant things. But she seemed to know far more about me than I did about her.

“You’re not a happy chappy.”

What could I say? The years had taken their toll. I walked her to her Mazda. We stood for a while with the car door open, watching one of Joburg’s thunderstorms preparing itself to break. She turned to me and her eyes swelled with knowing and I was touched by what she said:

“Most of my life has been spent waiting for something to happen. Whenever something does threaten to happen, I run away. That’s the story of my life.”

It wasn’t the story I had written. I had written some other story. She drove away into the darkening storm and I stood for a long while outside the Killarney Mall wondering if a man could ever understand a woman. If a man could ever understand himself.

I drove home all the way up Jan Smuts and William Nicol, mixed myself a GT, lit up a cheap cigar, watched the sun setting behind the rain to the sound of Serge Gainsbourg. I didn’t understand French, I didn’t understand women. I tried reading J. M. Coetzee but he depressed me, made me feel insubstantial. The sun died and I didn’t have the energy to turn on the lights.

I sat thinking about all the Blondes I’d ever shared a night with. I couldn’t believe my life was nearly over. There was a space inside me crying out that it had hardly begun. I fumbled through the pile on my desk, found an old address book, sat staring at the pages for what seemed like a very long time. The GT must have finished itself, Serge ran out of things to sing about. I didn’t have the bottle to phone her.

I couldn’t remember her name.

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