‘With an injured arm?’
‘Well, that’s what stopped him,’ she says. ‘He, like, grabbed at the plate, and then he couldn’t grasp it properly, so he stopped.’ She pauses. ‘Did I tell you he hurt his arm?’
Damn.
‘You must’ve,’ I say. ‘Because I know. And there’s no other way that I’d know.’
‘Mmm,’ says April. I can see she’s not especially worried about it.
How on earth did I get into this situation?
‘But I don’t know what to do, Mary,’ she says. ‘I want to leave. I need to leave. I need to get the kids away. But at the same time, I’m really scared. Maybe living with it is better than dying.’
‘Steve will get you the protection order,’ I say. ‘And you know that Leo will respect that.’
‘What if I’m wrong about that? What if Leo turns out to be one of those men who kills his family and then himself? You hear about it all the time.’
I try to picture this.
‘I just can’t imagine Leo doing that,’ I say.
‘Tell me honestly,’ says April. ‘Can you imagine Leo beating me till my ribs crack?’
I say nothing.
‘I rest my case,’ she says.
‘Fair enough,’ I say. ‘But is this how you want to live? And is this what you want for your kids?’
She puts her head in her hands. ‘No,’ she mumbles.
‘Listen,’ I say, ‘I know sometimes these men kill, but I think more often they know when they are beaten, and they give up and go and start all over again with another woman. I think that will happen here, I really do.’
April nods. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘You’re probably right.’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘There must be support groups. Maybe we could find you one. Then you’d see that in most cases it turns out fine.’
‘That’s a great idea,’ she says. ‘I’ll have a look.’
‘Speaking of great ideas, did you look at the jobs I sent?’ I ask.
‘Yes, yes. So cool,’ she says. ‘I just need to finish the CV, and get the protection order started, then I can apply.’
‘April,’ I say, ‘those jobs won’t just wait for you. You need to apply now. There’s an unemployment crisis in South Africa.’
‘You’re right,’ she says. ‘But what’s the point if they ask me to start tomorrow? Because I can’t.’
‘True,’ I say. ‘But usually jobs will allow a month, or whatever. That’s all the time you need.’
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll get on it. As soon as I do the CV.’
I smile, but my heart sinks a bit. This is reminding me of conversations we used to have about her work. April has no intention of getting a job, and she has to if she is going to survive.
‘So when are you seeing Steve?’ I ask, mostly to distract myself.
‘Tomorrow,’ she says. ‘While the kids are at school.’
With that, we hear a yell from in the house, and little Doreen comes running out, the boys behind her.
‘It was an accident, Mom,’ yells Zach. ‘I swear, I swear.’
Django is behind him. ‘It was,’ he says. ‘Reenie just slipped off the bed.’
Reenie is crying, and there is blood seeping through her tracksuit pants, at the knee.
‘I falled,’ she says.
‘Come,’ I say. ‘I have plasters inside. Let’s get you fixed up.’
‘Django must put plaster,’ she says.
‘Are you up to doing that, Django? You know where the plasters are, right?’ I ask. He nods. ‘Are you okay with that, April?’
‘Sure,’ says April, smiling at Django. ‘You seem up to the job of applying a plaster.’
The kids go back into the house, and a few minutes later we hear them talking and laughing.
‘He’s such a good boy, Mary,’ says April.
I am feeling rather proud of him. ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘He has a good heart, I guess.’
‘Gets it from his mom,’ says April with a smile.
I’m trying to find a way to segue the conversation into telling her about Joshua, so that Leo can’t tell her without her knowing and then she’ll realise I’ve spoken to him. I should have just told April when I saw Leo. Looking back, I don’t know why I didn’t. But now it seems incredibly awkward to just come out and say, ‘So, news, spilt with Joshua.’ But I need to say something, and I am literally about to say it when she looks at her watch.
‘Hell,’ she says. ‘I have to go. Leo said he wanted oxtail for supper. I still have to buy it and get it started. He’s going to freak.’
I can see the panic as she calls for the kids.
‘Sorry, Mary. I know we were supposed to have a proper catch-up. Sorry.’
‘That’s okay,’ I say. ‘You should have cancelled.’ I say this mildly, but I actually am quite annoyed that she didn’t. I can’t quite grasp why she sets herself up for these situations, where she’s panicking and basically making sure that Leo will be angry. She could so easily have cancelled with me – I know the situation – and got the bloody oxtail going on time. I can see why Leo gets frustrated with her.
I stop. I’ve heard my own thoughts. And they’re not okay.
‘April,’ I say, ‘they sell a really delicious pre-made oxtail down the road. Why don’t you just buy and fake it.’
She looks at me as a slow smile spreads over her face. ‘That’s a brilliant idea, Mary,’ she says. ‘That’s exactly what I’ll do.’
For a moment I think this means that she’ll sit down again, and I can tell her my news, but she gathers her kids and rushes them out. As they walk through the house, I see her glance at the tulips. I have them in a glass vase on a bookcase near the entrance. I considered hiding them from April, but decided that would be mad. I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but she seems to pause and look at them for a moment. But she says nothing, and soon it is just Django and me, standing looking at the empty house.
‘Mom?’ says Django. ‘Something really weird happened now.’ He’s chewing at his thumb. I can see something is really worrying him, so I give him my full attention.
‘What’s that, love?’
‘You know how I had to put a plaster on Reenie’s knee?’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, when I was putting the plaster on Reenie, she started talking about times she’s seen other people hurt – you know how little kids are, always telling long irrelevant stories.’
I smile to myself, as Django speaks from the lofty heights of being twelve years old. I nod. ‘So what’s the problem?’
‘She said something weird. She said that when her mom hurt her dad, he said he wasn’t allowed to put a plaster on. So I kind of looked at Zach, because maybe she had the story wrong, or had left something out? And he kind of shrugged, and then he said, “That time was nothing. She broke my dad’s arm.”’
We’re standing in the entrance, and I need to sit.
‘Let’s go sit down,’ I say to Django. ‘And then tell me this again.’
After Django repeats the story, I say, ‘Are you sure it wasn’t the other way? Are you sure they didn’t say that it was Leo who broke April’s arm?’
Django gives me a strange look. ‘Why would Leo break April’s arm? April’s arm isn’t even broken?’ he says.
I’m about to try to gently explain to my boy child that it’s usually men behind things like this, and that April’s arm might have been broken in the past. I feel like this is a conversation that I have been waiting to have ever since Travis died, but I’m still not sure where to start.
But Django isn’t done.
‘Think about it, Mom,’ he says. ‘When we go to their place, it’s always April who gets uptight. When Leo’s there, he’s totally chill unless April is near him.’
‘What?’
‘She doesn’t do it in front of you,’ he says, with a shrug like this is obvious. ‘But, like, if we are playing upstairs and she comes up to give us ju
ice or something, she’ll always say something cross to Zach and Reenie.’ He pauses. ‘And,’ he says, ‘she’s always fighting with Leo. Every time we go somewhere with them, they’re fighting when we get there. You must have noticed.’
‘That doesn’t mean it’s her,’ I say. ‘Adults are complicated, love.’
‘It’s her,’ says Django. ‘You just don’t see it because you’re her friend, and you’re the type of person who is a very good and loyal friend.’
I can’t help it, I’m flattered.
‘Is that really how you see me?’ I say, with a smile.
‘It’s not really a compliment, Mom,’ says Django in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘It makes you a bit blind. You always think your friends are right.’
‘You don’t really think that April broke Leo’s arm?’ I say. ‘I mean, really?’
Django shrugs. ‘How else did he break it?’
‘In an accident, like he said.’ Or hurting April, but I don’t want to have to go there with Django.
‘Leo’s the most chilled guy,’ says Django, conversationally. ‘Except when April shouts at him, and then he goes all still. But otherwise, he is so chilled.’
It’s like Django has seen a whole different world to mine, even though we have been looking at the same things. But Django is only twelve, almost thirteen. And he doesn’t know about abusive men. And he doesn’t know what April has told me. She wouldn’t make up something like that. Leo hits April.
Still, as I go through the motions of the rest of the day, I can’t help wondering – have I got this all wrong? Is Django seeing something that I can’t?
I wish that I could talk to Joshua about this, but he still hasn’t phoned. It’s over and I must accept it. And it’s over because he wouldn’t believe that Leo would hurt April.
Which, apparently, Django can’t believe either.
Could I be the one in the wrong?
Chapter 42
I have a sleepless night, going over and over everything that has happened since I met April, trying to look at it objectively, trying to see what Django sees. But I keep coming back to the same thing: April would not have lied about this. No woman would. It’s not the sort of thing you lie about.
I think of speaking to Linda, who knows the situation. But I don’t want to be that person, that person who doubts the victim. I went as far as ending things with Joshua when he doubted April. How can I be doing the same now?
Finally, I text April.
Everything okay with the oxtail last night?
God knows how I think I will segue this into a conversation about Leo’s broken arm. I needn’t have worried. April phones me immediately.
‘He knew that I didn’t cook it, but he didn’t seem to mind,’ she tells me. ‘Please thank Django for taking care of Reenie’s cut. She can’t stop talking about it, and every injury everyone in the world has ever received.’ She laughs.
‘Django mentioned that. Said she talked about Leo’s arm.’
‘God,’ says April, ‘she’s so funny about that. She’s convinced someone broke it.’ She pauses. ‘Actually, Mary, I get the feeling that Leo told the kids that I broke it. But he can’t have, can he? And they wouldn’t believe him, obviously. They’ve seen enough to know who hurts who in our house.’
It’s Saturday, and Django is sleeping late. I am pacing restlessly around the house, trying to still my worries, when my phone rings.
It’s Leo Goldstein. I can’t help it, but I feel a shot of adrenalin when I see his name. I’m not clear if it’s fear, or something else. Something I can’t stand to name.
I answer.
‘Mary?’ he says in that warm way he has. ‘I’ve got all worried that it wasn’t appropriate of me to send you flowers and you aren’t talking to me now.’
I laugh. I can’t help it, even though there is a grain of truth in it.
‘The flowers were fine, Leo,’ I say. ‘Very thoughtful.’
‘Do you ever do that, Mary?’ he says. ‘Obsess about what someone meant until you can’t see straight?’ Then he laughs. ‘No, you’re not bonkers like me. You wouldn’t.’
‘As a matter of fact, I was just doing exactly that,’ I say.
‘Really?’
He waits. But of course I can’t explain to him that I am wondering if April broke his arm, and if so, if anything April says is true. But it’s like he has read my mind.
‘Mary,’ says Leo, ‘I know you’ll probably say no, but could I ask you to have lunch with me tomorrow? If you do, I’ll tell you everything. You won’t believe me, but I’ll tell you.’
For a moment, I’m tempted. There is something compelling about Leo. But I’m not prepared to be dragged into more lies.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t want to. And don’t send me flowers again, either.’
I put the phone down.
Joshua still hasn’t phoned.
I’m working at the coffee shop around the corner from my house. I prefer going to Exclusive Books in Rosebank, but both April and Leo know to find me there. Right now, I don’t want to see either of them. I want to forget about them and do my work, and think about my parents, and my own life. I don’t want to be thinking about who broke whose arm. I know it sounds selfish, put like that – but I just want one day of calm, one day to regroup and be me.
But it’s not going to happen.
Is it strange to say that I smell Leo before I see him? He wears a very distinctive aftershave, and as soon as the smell touches my nose, I know that when I look up, Leo will be standing there. It worries me that my body has learnt his smell without me even being aware of it happening.
I lift my head, ready to snap at him, to tell him that I don’t appreciate being hunted down and stalked. This isn’t okay, and he needs to know that.
But I see Leo and it all sort of evaporates. He looks so beaten. His face is bruised, his arm is in a sling and he looks greyer than when I last saw him. He looks tired. Still good-looking, because he really is, ridiculously so. He looks damaged.
‘What are you doing here?’ I say. It isn’t friendly but it also isn’t the angry tirade that I was planning on.
‘I need to explain to you, Mary. I need you to know. I don’t know why, but I need to. Please.’
Maybe it’s the ‘please’ that breaks me, his voice so vulnerable and needy.
I say nothing, and he takes that as consent and sits down next to me. I leave my computer open, to make it clear that he is interrupting.
‘You look lovely,’ he says.
I’m wearing one of my vintage dresses. I felt like it this morning. But it’s quite low cut, and I feel uncomfortable.
He calls over the waiter and orders a Coke. I’m not sure what to say; I don’t want him here. I’m about to say something when he speaks.
‘April never lets me have fizzy drinks,’ he says, with a smile. ‘I feel quite rebellious.’
I don’t know what to make of the idea that April lets or doesn’t let him do things, so I ask. ‘Lets?’
‘Oh yes,’ he says, as if it is perfectly obvious. ‘She’s really strict about healthy drinking. Or wine. You must have noticed.’
I haven’t noticed anything of the sort, although I suppose she is always on a diet. But last time we took the kids for pizza everyone had Fanta and she didn’t blink. But I don’t say anything – maybe he’s trying to get ammunition to use against her in their next fight.
‘I’m just surprised that she has any say over what you drink,’ I say. ‘You seem to do pretty much whatever you want.’ I indicate him sitting there, next to me, in illustration.
‘Let’s cut to the chase,’ says Leo. ‘You think I beat her.’
I open my mouth, but he interrupts.
‘There’s no need to confirm it,’ he says. ‘This has happened before. She’s either set it up so you think this, or maybe she’s even told you. It’s all part of her game. Part of her pathology.’
He takes a sip of his drink and I meet his eyes. I expect to see h
im looking triumphant or calculating – something that reflects the game his words seem to be playing. But instead, I see pain. I am not sure, but I think I see the beginning of tears.
‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?’ I say eventually. His cheek in interrupting me while I work, finding me, stalking me, has made me brave.
‘Fair enough,’ he says. He leans forward, glancing at the tables around us.
‘You’re not going to believe me, and you are not going to like it,’ he says softly, ‘but I’m going to tell you the whole story of April and me.’
He takes a deep breath.
‘In the beginning, I was charmed by April, like you are. I won’t pretend, I am a man who likes to get what he wants, and I wanted April. And April wanted me. We seemed like the perfect match. Yes, she wasn’t Jewish, and my family weren’t thrilled. And maybe the fact that my parents hated her added to it. In every other way, she was the perfect woman and we were the perfect couple.’
I nod. This is how I perceive them.
‘It started when I noticed the lying. When you live with someone, when you’re one of those inseparable couples, there’s only so long that April’s level of lying can go undetected. First, I actually found it charming. She’d exaggerate a story a bit, and who doesn’t do that? Make it funnier, cleverer? Then I noticed that she’d tell other people’s stories as if it had happened to her, or give opinions that I knew she’d heard from other people. But, you know, I still thought we were in the charming-funny boat.’
I nod. April does tell a good story. And I have occasionally wondered, briefly, if they can all be true.
‘Then the really stupid lies started showing. I would know that she’d bought a dress at, say, Woolies, and she’d tell someone she got it at Truworths. It wasn’t even meaningful lying – like, sometimes it actually made her look worse, not better. Like she’d give a donation to charity, and say she hadn’t.’
‘That’s weird,’ I say. I want to say that it’s impossible, but I can’t. Something is ringing true.
Never Tell A Lie Page 24