The Inside Out Man Read online

  My friends have particular tastes, he said. You’ll need a suit. He lit up and took a drag. Black. Not navy, not grey, and definitely not beige. Black. You’re there for the weekend, so you’ll need three new white shirts, three pairs of new black socks, and new underwear. But most importantly, a good black suit. No tie necessary. We like it casual. Think you can handle that?

  Sure, I said.

  Good.

  At that point, things began to feel believable, his offer genuine. We’re never sure there’s a real deal being made until the fine print comes up—and right then, it was the print on the labels of my cheap and undesirable wardrobe. It was weird, the idea that it could all really be happening. Suddenly, I felt unprepared.

  I used to play a bit, Leonard said, looking at his palms. I have big hands, like Rachmaninov. They thought it might help, but it didn’t. Big hands weren’t enough, apparently. Go figure.

  I thought about my gig that night, the fugue, the shift in Coby’s manner. Then I said, Can I ask you something?

  Absolutely.

  Tonight, I went on. You were here all night?

  I was.

  What did you think of my set?

  Your set? Tonight, my friend, it wasn’t you playing, Leonard said with a leer as he stabbed at the ashtray. Just saying, chief. From down here, it sounded a lot more like the devil.

  12.

  I woke up with only a vague recollection of the night before. The man in the suit was lost in a swirl of alcohol and smoke and darkness. Like the Cheshire cat, all that remained was that white grin. My head was pounding, my mouth was dry, and I felt the usual post-inebriation sense of guilt—but that all disappeared as soon as I checked my bank account at an ATM.

  As promised, the money was there, a line of big fat digits sitting atop the few bedraggled bucks I already had. Even so, I could barely believe what I was seeing. Money’s not money until it stinks up your hand. Any moment, I expected the screen to flicker, and the amount would be gone.

  But that didn’t happen.

  The numbers remained.

  I looked over my shoulder. An old woman was standing behind me, a big red perm mushrooming around her head as if somebody had hit a nuclear pause button. She was impatient to get to the machine, picking at her teeth with a long, red fingernail. She may have been standing there for all of five minutes.

  I withdrew nothing from my account, snatched my card as the machine spat it out, apologised to the woman. Then I went into the shop next door to buy a small orange juice with the change in my pocket.

  13.

  The next time I went to the ATM, later that afternoon, I withdrew a couple of grand, more as a test than anything else. I rolled up the notes, looked over my shoulder, and shoved them into my back pocket. I scurried from the outside teller and went into The Drunken Sailor. I ordered three courses, and got through two bottles of wine. After that, stuffed and tipsy, I walked home.

  There was no gig that night, which suited me fine. I wasn’t in the right state to play, and the reality of a vast amount of available cash had begun to sink in. Once home, I called the two bars I’d been booked to play on the weekend, and told them I had to cancel. A family emergency, I said.

  Neither bar made much of a fuss. Each manager wished me well, told me they’d see me the following week. After hanging up, I sat on my bed in the darkness and thought about the countryside gig. I’d committed myself, after all.

  My stomach was in a tangle. I felt nerves I hadn’t felt in years, possibly not since my first public performance. It was just a gig, I told myself. Nothing more. That’s what I’d agreed to, right? Play piano for a private party. Ignoring the money for a moment, I’d played plenty private parties before.

  I turned on the television.

  A jewellery-store robbery had been caught on a security camera, which showed a man in black pulling out a gun. A clerk ducked behind the counter, the man leant over and emptied a round into his back, then grabbed handfuls of jewellery, filling his coat pockets as he did so. In stuttering slow-motion frames, the robber dashed for the door. The footage was replayed, with its gravelly voice-over and a detective’s explanation. Gun, duck, shoot, grab, dash.

  Gun, duck, shoot, grab, dash.

  I switched off, and the screen was blank.

  This was Monday.

  After clearing the funds, I walked into a used-car dealership and spotted a white Cressida—an older box-shaped model I’ve always preferred. Every new car looks like a melon or a loaf of bread. No character. No class. The dealer agreed, of course. This one’s an oldie but a goodie, he said, running his hand over the bonnet. Good tread on the tyres. A recently replaced radiator. No leaks.

  I sat in the front seat and rolled my palms over the leather steering wheel. The inside smelt like stale petrol fumes, and the faded dashboard was peeling. The upholstery was mapped with mysterious stains and a weathered baby seat was fixed in the back. None of that mattered. I took it for a test and it ran fine. The dealer could tell I wasn’t in the mood for fussing, and was prepared to knock off a couple of grand if I bought it cash. So, that’s what I did.

  This was Tuesday.

  There’s a barbershop on Buitengracht that has a twirling white-and-red pole outside. I wondered if the owners were aware of its symbolism: the blood and bandages of mediaeval surgeries, places where men could also get a shave and trim. Civilisation’s constant rebranding of pain and death.

  Three barbers were on duty, and I picked the one with the worst haircut, assuming it to be the substandard effort of one of his colleagues. Afterwards, the barber pointed me in the direction of a Turkish tailor a few doors down. He measured me up for the black jacket of my choice, and while he did the alterations, I hopped across the road. I bought three shirts and a new pair of shiny black shoes, as well as some black socks and underwear from a clothing store next door, one with so many CLOSING DOWN SALE signs one could swear it was the name of the shop.

  This was Wednesday.

  At the entrance to the Crack Radisson, a homeless man reached out to grab my coat. He’d appeared from nowhere, a filthy, bearded man of indeterminate age. His clothes were rags. A grubby green beanie hugged his head, and a few brown teeth jutted from grey gums. He wanted to speak to me, but I told him I didn’t have the time. He said he was Jesus. I thought this was his name, or nickname, until I realised he was professing to be the Jesus.

  I’ve come back, he said, but nobody will believe me. Nobody will help me. He’d even walked into a church to announce himself, but they’d thrown him out. He didn’t understand the world any more. It was colder than he remembered, the sky without stars, and the buildings so tall he could hardly find his way around. Then the grimy, piss-reeking son of God asked if I could spare a few coins, and I said I was sorry, So sorry, really, as I pulled my coat from his grip and walked into the harsh light of the lobby.

  This was Thursday.

  14.

  A thick mist swirled along the base of the mountains, in and out of valleys, and across the highway. Hidden by the dense whiteness, the sun was nowhere to be seen. Here and there the tip of a pylon, or the bulges of a dark hill, or the crumbling shell of an abandoned farmhouse came into view. I’d set out two hours earlier, after receiving the directions on my phone, with the only stipulation to arrive before sunset. I could be faulted on more things than I wished to admit, but punctuality would never be one of them. Punctuality is, after all, the best-kept secret to survival.

  The Cressida climbed the mountainside, but the lights did little to improve visibility. The car heater was cranked up, though it seemed a wonder that the thermostat functioned at all; every other feature, from the windscreen wipers to the hazard lights, appeared to operate at the flip of some unseen coin.

  Otherwise, everything was working out fine.

  Everything but the goddamned mist.

  The last petrol station was run down, and the pumps looked like rusty old refrigerators. The lone attendant hobbled from his cubicle and filled
the car as I walked to the shoulder of the highway. The sun was low on the horizon, and sickly in the fog. Straining through the grey, it looked exhausted and defeated.

  I paid the attendant and went on my way.

  Signs marked the bumpy route, pointing the way to isolated towns up in the mountains: Angelico. Kuierkraal. Ouberg. Finally, the sign for Krymeer appeared, and I took the turnoff. No sooner had I done so than a large dark building appeared in the distance, tucked between the hills. Exuding an aura of extravagance and excess, it seemed out of place in the surrounding countryside.

  This was Leonard Fry’s Casa de Triomph.

  I pulled up to an iron gate in the centre of a circular stone wall. As I leant over to push the intercom, the gate opened slowly, inviting me in. Weeping willow saplings stood at equal intervals in the garden. Hedges were trimmed to cubes, and the green lawns were immaculate. The stone manor itself was like something concocted over the course of an architect’s bad trip, a cross between a parliament building and a cathedral. Spires of varying lengths jutted upwards, as if for protection against a sky that might fall at any minute.

  Several luxury cars were parked in semi-circle around the front entrance. I pulled up alongside them, checked my reflection in the rear-view mirror, and took a deep breath. I reached into the back for my black jacket on its hanger, got out, put the jacket on, and grabbed my gym bag. The grey building towered over me as I went up the stone steps and stood between two columns framing a tall pair of doors. I stared at the black wrought-iron knocker, and just as I was about to grab it, the door opened—

  A tall, attractive brunette stood before me. Nude. At first I thought I’d turned up at the wrong house (and was therefore somehow to blame for her nakedness), but her expression suggested otherwise—I was precisely where I needed to be. She scanned me from top to bottom with deep brown eyes as she leant against the door on a long slender forearm. A smile crept across her small mouth. Without permission, my eyes slid down: her breasts were firm and perfect. Her pubic hair was a narrow strip. She was a tanned, voluptuous fantasy—and I did my best to seem cool and unaffected.

  The pianist, she said with a smile. Just in time. She turned, looked back and said, This way, swaying gently as she moved, as light on her feet as a cat. I went into the house and closed the door gently behind me.

  Craning my neck, I studied the décor, and the golden, ribbed arch of the ceiling. The tiled floors were as white as a crime scene bleached of incriminating stains. Several paintings hung on the maroon walls in large, ornamental frames.

  As I walked, my eyes strayed from the paintings to the woman’s firm yet hypnotically undulant arse and back to the artworks: a faceless man in a hat, sitting on a wooden chair in an empty room without windows. In the next painting, a woman’s delicate hands massaged the blubbery back of an obese man playing cards with headless men around a table. In another, a small dog licked at a bloody head-wound on a staring old man, presumably dead.

  All the paintings seemed to have been done by the same artist. Each was skilfully rendered, but hooked on bad news. I wondered if it said more about the painter or the collector that such a sinister collection was so proudly and publicly exhibited. It was a painting at the end, however, that made me stop and peer closely.

  In dark, disorderly strokes, there was a depiction of a woman lying on a rumpled bed, holding a bottle of whiskey. Her eyes had rolled back in her head, and foamy vomit lined her mouth. The silhouette of a boy stood in a doorway to the woman’s right. My eyes darted from the whites of her eyes to her pale and twisted limbs. The bottle. The boy. The duvet dangling on the floor …

  (Sometimes, I guess, there’s nothing but the horror.)

  Who did these? I asked. These paintings.

  No questions, piano man, the brunette said, waving a finger, as if ignorance was the theme of the party and my probing was ruining the mood.

  I nodded, gave the painting one last look, and continued after her. We passed doors that stood ajar. I did my best to catch a glimpse of what was going on. The party had clearly started, though the gaps didn’t reveal much: men dressed in black, brief flashes of female flesh, champagne flutes, food platters. A laugh. A low moan. The clink of glasses.

  Top of the stairs, the woman said with a suddenness that jolted me. Third door on the left. That’s where you’ll be staying. End of the second-floor corridor. That’s where you’ll be playing. The only two places you need to know. Understand?

  I nodded, asked, Is Leonard around?

  The woman laughed. Leonard’s a round. Leonard’s a square, she said, and then she slipped through one of the doors, disappearing as swiftly as she had appeared, abandoning me and my gym bag at the base of the staircase.

  I followed her instructions and ended up in a plain little room with a single bed, a small television, and an old-fashioned phone. I put my bag on the bed and lifted the silver lid off a plate of food on my bedside table. Fish, green beans, potatoes, and gravy. The food was warm, as if it had been prepared at precisely the time I’d walked in the front door. I wasn’t hungry, so I put the lid back on and ventured to the end of the second-floor corridor. A piano stood in a semi-circular glass enclosure, which was in the corner of the large room. Nobody had yet made their way up there, but it looked prepped for a helluva party. There were seven leather couches, three fireplaces, a number of mattresses scattered across the floor, and more ice buckets in iron stands than I cared to count. Another grander entrance to the room was positioned at the far side, a double door with large red knobs. Tables on either side of the doors held rows of empty glasses and silver trays laden with fruit. Beside the tables were vintage-style chests that seemed to be filled with props, masks, and other accessories.

  I left the room the way I had come, through the back entrance, and entered the piano enclosure from an adjacent door in the outside corridor. A black piano stood in the centre of a raised platform, together with a lamp and an old-style telephone atop a small red table. The walls were made of mirrored one-way glass. My image bounced against the glass, which reflected the mirror behind me in a series of endless reflections, all moving in eerie unison with my infinite selves.

  I sat down at the sleek black piano and lifted the cover. I ran my fingers over the keys and thought about the opening piece I’d play. One for the ladies, I thought. A little ditty I liked to call “Greedy Fry’s Goodbye Orgy.”

  15.

  The house filled with guests, though I didn’t see a soul. I could hear them scuttling around, like large rats beneath the floor, but ask me who they were, what they looked like, or what they were all doing, and frankly, pal, guesses leave messes. Nobody used the corridor between the piano room and my own. When it came time to play, the phone would ring in my bedroom and a woman on the other end would say nothing but Please make your way.

  I’d go and play for an hour or two before another phone rang in the piano room to sign me off with a cold and curt: Thank you. I’d then return to my room to find another meal and a bottle of water on my bedside table. There was a tiny window in my room, with a view of the hills. Once or twice I sat and stared and waited for something to move out there, a bird or small animal in the bushes, but nothing did. The outside world may as well have been a painting. So I’d watch bad television, go in and out of sleep, until I was brought back by a sound that seemed to creep from my dreams: ring-ring—ring-ring. Then, Please make your way.

  The playing itself went fine. Without a visible crowd, a spotlight, or any guideline as to what to play, it flowed easily. The hours at the piano weren’t anything like as long as the hours in my bedroom. Time passes quickly when I play. It’s always been like that, and I’ve come to the realisation that nothing—not cigarettes or fast food or the city smog—brings me closer to death than a seat at the keys.

  A peculiar thing was the way the lights would suddenly flicker, very briefly, at all times of the day and night. The ceiling light in my bedroom flickered (though without the TV being affected), as well as
the gold-cupped wall lamps in the corridor, and the light in the piano room too. It almost seemed deliberate, as if someone was flipping a switch, though eventually my mind ceased to register the flickering at all. As for the party, I could only imagine what was going on in that room—the women, the mattresses, the panting and moaning …

  But surely a weekend of group sex wasn’t enough? So, what else? Drugs? Possibly. Probably. With each passing moment in the mansion, though, my curiosity waned. I grew certain that the walls, the one-way glass, and closed doors hid nothing more than just another bacchanal. Human pleasures stem from simple seeds. Rich, poor—we whore the same senses. We eat, we drink, we jerk off (alone, or with someone else), ingest our chemicals and bloat our egos. And that’s about the sum of it.

  16.

  The second night, I had a dream.

  I’m driving to the manor through the mountains, but there is no mist. The sun is shining and the sky is blue. I drive the Cressida up to the iron gates and they slowly swing open. My car creeps up the driveway, but instead of luxury cars outside the manor, I find an assortment of hatchbacks and station wagons and regular old sedans. I get out and make my way to the entrance. The door opens, but there is no beautiful naked woman waiting for me on the other side. Rather, I’m greeted by an old man in a smart black suit. He smiles, waves a hand for me to enter.

  It takes a short while to realise that the man is in fact my neighbour at the Crack Radisson. His cheeks are full and rosy, and his grey hair is neatly cut and combed to the side. The crooked and neglected brown teeth are even and white.

  “It’s good to see you,” he says, extending his arms to hug me. “Thank you for coming.”

  I say nothing as I step into his embrace. His arms wrap around me like tentacles. Staring over his shoulder, I become aware of something in the background. The black blubbery mass of living tissue is thick as an insomniac’s night, sliding in and out of itself, filling the hallway, slithering up the stairs, pressing against the walls. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before, yet at the same time I know it all too well. Primordial, grossly uncomfortable with itself, it groans in distress.