The army gathers

They were on the last leg of the journey from Johannesburg when Martin remarked on how many twin-cabs were barrelling past them.

“And they all have a couple of bicycles lashed to the back, d’you see that? Every one of them.”

“Families on their way to the sea,” Leonie said, just as another vehicle sped by.

“Right on the bloody double line, that one.” Martin squinted into the sun. “Someone coming at them they wouldn’t have a hope in hell of seeing them.” He blinked. “And see that? Two big bikes and a little one. Bloody hell.”

“I wouldn’t get my knickers in a twist. Mum, dad and kid. Nothing odd about it at all.”

Martin brooded quietly for a few minutes. Of course, half of Johannesburg was decamping to the coast. But that wasn’t his point at all. It was the number of twin-cabs. He’d never seen so many.

“And they’re all white,” he burst out.

“Cooler, I expect,” Leonie said at once. Sometimes he thought that Leonie’s rejoinders were just a little too quick off the mark. As though she already had them up her sleeve and was just waiting for his cue.

“Our car…” For a second he couldn’t recall what make of car they possessed. But then he remembered it was a rental. “Our car…” he repeated, “isn’t white.”

“Which is why we have the air con on all the time. Waste of petrol.”

Yeah, yeah.

“Most of the cars on the road aren’t white either.” Put that in your pipe and…

“That one is,” Leonie said, as a little Toyota whizzed past going north.

Another twin-cab overtook them on what he thought was a dangerous curve, its slip-stream buffeting them. Arseholes. But he focused on the case in hand.

“See? White twin-cab. Three bicycles on the back. Two big, one small.”

Leonie twisted slightly in her seat to catch his eye. “You’re good at calculating probabilities, aren’t you?”

“Go on.” He felt a little suspicious, scenting a trap.

“Well, tell me how many families from up-country are likely to have one child of bike-riding age.”

“I have absofuckinglutely no idea.”

“Come on, Martin, you’re the guy who said he could work out how many piano tuners there were in Cape Town.”

He was sometimes astonished by Leonie’s feats of memory. He’d last performed his piano tuner parlour trick, what, it must have been twelve or fifteen years ago. But her ploy had succeeded. He was trapped.

“Okay,” he said.

He worked through the calculations silently. Possible one and a half million married couples in Jo’burg, of which, say, one sixth were in the right age bracket to have a kid of the right size, which made two fifty thousand of whom, what? roughly one fiftieth were likely to trek to the Cape Coast for Christmas…

“Five thousand,” he said, cautiously.

“Five thousand,” she said, triumphant. “And of those, how many have passed us? A couple of dozen, tops.”

He didn’t bother to argue his case any further. It was clear to him that even if there were five thousand Jo’burg couples with a kid of the right age heading for the Cape Coast, only a tiny percentage of them were likely to own twin-cabs, and even fewer, white twin-cabs.

Another twin-cab hastened past. White. Three bikes strapped to the back, two large, one small.

Something about the small bike caught his eye. Something purple, a ribbon perhaps, tied to the handle-bars.

He dozed.

***

He woke with a start when Leonie shook his knee. He’d been dreaming about a beach filled with identical seals who’d been gazing at him with imploring seal faces and those huge seal eyes.

Their car was parked in a lay-by. A concrete picnic table with cracked concrete benches on either side baked in the late afternoon sun.

“Your turn, buster,” Leonie said.

They opened their doors and circled the car: he went round the front, Leonie round the back.

“Where are we?” He scanned the landscape on either side of the road: rounded hills covered with small boulders, straggly desert plants filling all the spaces between them.

“Not far from Willowmore. A hundred and something to go.”

He slipped in behind the wheel and closed the door. Leonie was settling in, rearranging the cables feeding their cell phones. He turned the ignition, checked his rear-view mirror and nosed his way onto the tarmac.

He was still adjusting his shoulders and settling his hands comfortably on the steering wheel when the first twin-cab whisked by.

“See,” he said, “another bloody…” He felt the words die in his throat. “Oh my god,” he whispered.

“What is it, Martin?”

“That twin-cab…”

“Jesus, Martin, can’t you leave it now? It’s boring.”

“Did you see the kid’s bike?”

“No, I did not see the kid’s bike because I will not encourage your obsession.”

He ploughed on regardless: “It had a bit of purple something tied to the handlebars.” He realised that he hadn’t mentioned the ribbon before – although now it seemed to him less like a ribbon than a length of twine or something similar. He added quickly: “I saw the same bike with the same purple thingy half an hour ago.”

“Martin, just listen to yourself,” Leonie said, her voice tight and precise. She only used his name when she was cross with him. This was the third or fourth time she’d used it over the last hour of their journey. He thought he’d be able to draw up an index which would match the severity of Leonie’s fury with the number of times she used his name. Like the hurricane scale, or the earthquake index.

“But it’s the same vehicle,” he said.

“Just think rationally for a moment, as you’re constantly telling all of us to do. What is the most obvious explanation for this… this…”

“Phenomenon?”

“… this bullshit.”

“Leonie…”

She interrupted him at once. “No, Martin, think, just for a second.”

He took a deep breath. His fingers, he realised, were tight on the steering wheel. He consciously relaxed them. Even though he knew there wasn’t any point to the exercise, he considered the problem.

Half an hour ago, before he’d had his nap, a white twin-cab with a distinctive kid’s bike strapped to its back, had passed them. Five minutes ago, no, less, two minutes ago, an identical twin-cab with the same kid's bicycle, had passed them again. What possible…

“Oh,” he said, flat. Fucking hell.

“Exactly,” Leonie said. “You got it. Finally.”

“It must have stopped somewhere…”

“At one of those farm stalls we keep passing, probably.”

“Sorry,” he said. How something so obvious could have eluded him was beyond him. The twin-cabs had become an obsession. Leonie was right.

“I don’t really mind,” she said, “as long as you shut the fuck up about it until we get to De Rust.”

He drove in silence then for the next ten kilometres. Three twin-cabs, white, of course, passed at speed during this period. He said nothing. He tried to imagine what conjunction of market trends and pressures could explain the sudden overwhelming popularity of white twin-cabs among the class of people who habitually drove to the coast for Christmas.

But the answer or answers were of no consequence. Rather keep these idle speculations to himself than risk re-igniting Leonie’s anger.

He turned off the N9 onto the R341. “Just 35 kays or so to go. We should be there before sunset.”

“Watch your speed. It’s a 100 km zone,” Leonie said. But her voice had softened a degree. She was, he knew, preparing to forgive him his trespasses.

“God knows why.”

A moment later a twin-cab whooshed by.

“That’s probably doing at least one twenty, probably…”

And then the screen-capture function of his retina kicked in. He’d always been curious about this feature of the human sensorium. How it was possible to dial back a few seconds and re-examine a fleeting image in forensic detail.

The kid’s bike on the back of the twin-cab that was even now disappearing over the crest of the next hill had a length of purple twine whirling about the handlebars, driven by the vortex whipped up in the wake of the vehicle.

He thought about this for a moment or two. They’d passed no farm stalls or laybys since he’d last seen the tell-tale purple thingamajig.

“Leonie,” he began in what he hoped came across as an eminently reasonable tone, but she was waiting for this and pounced. Tautness had returned to her voice.

“Don’t say it, Martin, I’m warning you.”

“But, sweetheart…”

“Don’t sweetheart me. I saw it.”

What had she seen? The twin-cab? The bicycle? Something he did?

“You saw what?”

“The purple string or whatever it was.”

“Tied to the handlebars?” She didn’t reply to that. “So then you must admit that… I mean, how is it even possible?”

“Fuck off, Martin, it’s just a coincidence, okay? What else could it be?”

Good question. Indeed, what else could it be?

***

“David said we’d spot the entrance to the driveway by a date palm… There! Just up from the corner.”

“Gate’s closed,” he said, bringing the car to a stop and yanking on the handbrake. Roux Road was steep, making the turn into the driveway an awkward one.

“I’ll get it.” Leonie opened her door, got out and let gravity slam the door shut.

He opened his window and peered up through the gloom of early evening at the house. Even in the ambiguous light, it was clear that David and Jeremy’d done a great job. Of course, he’d admired the pictures they’d WhatsApped as the restoration of the old ostrich feather baron’s mansion had proceeded, but there was no substitute for the real thing.

Leonie tugged the gate open and he drove the car up the sharp slope from the road into the property. He parked below a fine sweep of stairs leading up to the porch. By the time he’d turned the engine off, alighted and stretched his shoulders, she’d closed the gate and was trudging up over the gravel to join him.

“Looks amazing,” she said.

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s at home, though,” he said. “No lights.” Dusk had fallen swiftly as it does in the Karoo and already the first stars were gleaming overhead.

“They’re bound to be inside. Probably making supper for us.” He hesitated. “Come on,” she said with a hint of impatience, “let’s find out where they are.”

She put a hand on his arm and made as if to mount the steps. But he was unaccountably reluctant. He didn’t know what it was that made him hesitate. He was, he knew, as eager to see David and Jeremy as Leonie was. It had been months since they’d last spent any time together. And yet…

“I’ll get the luggage out. You go ahead.”

She made a small click of irritation and climbed quickly up the stairs.

He opened the trunk, set their two suitcases on the ground, closed the trunk, took a suitcase in each hand and prepared to climb the stairs. Leonie had evidently let herself in. The front door stood open. Slowly, Martin climbed the stairway.

A figure emerged from the shadows. It was a child.

“Hello, Martin,” the child – a boy – said.

“Hello,” he responded automatically. “Do you live here?”

He was trying to work out what possible reason there might be for a child to be present in David and Jeremy’s house. A relative? A nephew, perhaps? A neighbour?

“Of course,” said the boy. “Where else would I live?”

“Oh. It’s just that I didn’t expect…”

He set the suitcases down. He felt confused, as if he’d downed a very large whisky too quickly.

“What’s your name?” he asked at last.

“Martin.”

“Martin?” Was the boy teasing him? Of course, Martin wasn’t the most unusual name in the world, but… “Really, Martin?”

“Yes, of course, really Martin. Just like yours.”

And then, quite suddenly, a light went on above them and Martin felt himself momentarily blinded. When his eyes recovered, there was someone else standing in the doorway beside the boy, beside Martin.

“David?” he said. It didn’t look like David. Ohmigod, it looked like… Martin blinked, he felt as if he was tumbling through space. He shook his head, and his eyes fell on the boy’s feet, encased in a pair of white sneakers, tied with purple laces.

“Hello, Martin,” the man said, in a voice so familiar it gave Martin an instant migraine.

“I like your car,” the boy, Martin, said. “It’s just like ours.”

Martin turned blindly. Below him in the driveway, illuminated now by the light on the porch, in place of his and Leonie’s rental, stood a white twin-cab. He could just see the bicycles lashed to the back.

He turned again. Martin stretched out a hand to him and grasped him by his elbow.

“You look a little poorly, old friend. Come in. We’ll fix you something to drink.”

He led Martin into the house. They turned into the first room on the left.

“It’s all Martin’s design, of course,” his guide said. “We thought, a photograph of all of us above the woodstove, what do you think?”

“I did that drawing,” the boy said, pointing at a sketch of the house hanging behind the sofa

“Come meet Martin, he’s busy with supper.”

His hand still cupping Martin’s elbow, he guided him towards the room on the right of the central corridor, a large open-plan kitchen/dining room. A figure was standing at the island, his back towards them.

“You remember Martin, don’t you?” said his guide.

The man at the stove turned. He was wearing an apron.

“Hello, Martin,” he said, extending a hand to Martin. “I hope you had a pleasant journey. It’s a little hot, I know, but the forecast’s for cooler days this coming week.”

Martin found his voice at last.

“You’re all… you’re all called Martin,” he said, hoarsely.

“Well, of course,” the two adult Martins said in chorus, smiling. “Everyone’s called Martin.”

“I don’t understand…” he said, weakly.

He was distracted by the sound of deliberate footsteps coming down the corridor.

“We’re all called Martin because we all are Martin,” the Martin at the stove said.

“But tell me, where’s Leonie?” he said, frightened.

A man turned into the kitchen from the corridor. He, too, was wearing a gentle smile.

“Leonie?” he said. “Who’s Leonie?”