by Ekow Duker
‘It’s your mother.’
Nigel took a deep breath and sat down on the bed. ‘Hello, Mum.’
He listened in silence, his face growing more stricken by the minute. He pressed the phone against his bare chest.
‘She saw you,’ he whispered. ‘She said you shoved her over.’
Karabo shut her eyes and moaned. ‘I didn’t mean to. I swear it was an accident. What are we going to do?’
‘We?’ Nigel hissed. ‘There’s no we here, Karabo. You did this all by your fucking self. I didn’t have any part of it.’
He waved her away and held the phone to his ear again.
‘Yes, Mother, I’ve got it right here. Karabo brought it to me straight away.’
He glanced at the violin on his lap.
‘No, it’s not damaged.’ Then there was a long interlude filled by the tinny chatter of Mrs Summerscales’ voice and Nigel’s desperate pleading.
‘We don’t have to involve the police, Mother. Karabo lost her head, that’s all. She must be homesick. She wasn’t thinking straight.’
He placed the phone against his chest again and whispered to Karabo. ‘She wants us to bring the violin over right now. You’ll have to apologise to her in person.’
Karabo leaned her head against the side of the fridge. ‘I … I can’t.’
‘I’m afraid you don’t have a choice.’
‘I mean, not tonight. I’ll take it to her in the morning, I promise. It was my mistake. You don’t have to come.’
He looked relieved to hear this and spoke into the phone again. ‘Can she bring it back in the morning? She’s not up to facing you right now.’
Another pause. ‘I swear she will.’
He bunched the drawstring of his pyjamas in his fist until the flesh turned white around it.
‘Yes, Mum,’ he said at last. ‘She’ll be there with the violin, first thing in the morning.’
He tossed the phone onto the bed and looked up at Karabo. His eyes flashed with fury and his thin nostrils flared like he’d been running.
‘That’s a fucking mess you’ve got me into,’ he said angrily. ‘You’re lucky my mother’s not sending the police around to arrest you.’
‘What did you mean?’ Karabo asked. ‘When you said I was homesick?’ Her forehead was still pressed against the side of the fridge. ‘What did you mean by that?’
Nigel dismissed her question with an angry wave of his hand. He had not noticed the coldness in her voice.
‘Look, I had to tell her something. I don’t mean to be funny but you are very far away from everything that’s familiar to you. If I were in South Africa, I might go off the rails and do something equally absurd.’
‘What are you trying to say, Nigel?’
‘That you’re irrational. It’s in your blood.’
‘What’s in my blood?’
His jaw jutted out and his face grew coarse and ugly. ‘The slaves jumped off the ships taking them to America, didn’t they?’ He went on with an air of television-induced certainty. ‘I saw it on the History Channel. I know slavery was dreadful and all that, but jumping off a ship and drowning yourself? That’s not rational at all.’
‘You’re right, Nigel. It wasn’t rational.’
‘Exactly.’ There was a petulant note of triumph in his voice.
‘Starbucks and Disney World,’ Karabo said quietly. ‘Who wouldn’t stay on the boat for those?’
‘I wasn’t talking about you specifically,’ Nigel retorted. ‘Why, you’re hardly black yourself.’
Karabo put on a Southern accent and curtsied in front of Nigel. ‘Why, that’s mighty kind of you, Mr Summerscales, suh.’
‘You think this is funny, do you?’ he snapped.
‘I get it, Nigel. I’m your house nigger. Light enough in complexion to work in the main house and not out there in the the fields.’
‘Don’t get clever with me now,’ he replied testily. ‘If it weren’t for me, you’d be on your way to South Kensington police station right now!’
‘I suppose I should be grateful.’
‘I suppose you should.’
They stared at each other with the pent-up hostility of two dogs on either side of a street.
‘I’d better be going then,’ Karabo said after a while. She was already rehearsing what she’d say to Mrs Summerscales in the morning. That it hadn’t been her idea. She’d only done it for Nigel. She bent to take the violin but Nigel seized her wrist before she could touch it.
‘You’re not leaving with the Guadagnini.’
‘Very well. You can take it back to your mother yourself. I’m not coming back here ever again. Not after what you just said. It’s over between us.’
He released his grip and looked up at Karabo. He looked astonished, as if the thought of losing her had never entered his mind.
‘You don’t want to have to explain to your mother all by yourself, do you?’ she said.
‘Look, it’s been a pretty awful night,’ he said. ‘We’ve both done and said things we shouldn’t have.’
She touched his face with her palm. ‘It’s late. I’ve got to go.’
‘You will take it back in the morning, won’t you?’ His voice was tight with pleading as he watched her put the violin back in its case.
‘Goodbye, Nigel,’ Karabo replied. ‘I caused this mess and I should be the one to fix it.’
CHAPTER 33
When André arrived at the house the next morning, he found Mrs Summerscales lying on a sofa in the sitting room with a blanket spread across her knees. She looked tired, as if she’d hardly slept. A web of fine gullies fanned out from her nostrils and spread across her face. Her phone lay in her lap and André guessed she had not stirred from when she’d called him earlier and told him to come at once. He’d come as quickly as he could, and he tried to catch his breath. The thought of that magnificent instrument in the wrong hands distressed him.
Nigel, who had opened the door for André, was hovering over his mother, clucking attentively like a waiter angling for a tip.
‘Will you stop that!’ Mrs Summerscales snapped. She touched her head as if it hurt. There was a purple bruise above her left eye.
‘I’m only making sure you’re all right,’ Nigel said, patting the blanket absentmindedly.
André greeted her gravely. ‘Good morning, Mrs Summerscales.’
‘Not at present, Potgieter,’ Mrs Summerscales retorted. ‘It will be better once this girlfriend of Nigel’s shows up. It’s almost eleven o’clock and she’s nowhere to be seen.’
Nigel made a show of looking at his watch.
‘I’m sure she’ll be here soon, Mum.’
‘Have you called her?’
‘Yes, I have,’ Nigel said. He got up and peered at the empty glass cabinet where the Guadagnini used to be.
‘And?’ his mother snapped.
‘She’s not answering.’
A look of acute exasperation spread over Mrs Summerscales’ face. ‘Of course she’s not answering. She’s nothing but a common thief!’
Nigel pleaded with his mother. ‘Let’s give her some time. I know her. She’s mortified at what she did.’
They were arguing so intensely they hardly took any notice of André.
Mrs Summerscales rolled her eyes at her son. ‘For all we know she’s fled the country already. I really shouldn’t have listened to you last night. I should have sent the police around to arrest her like I said. I assumed you’d keep the violin and come with her this morning and now you tell me you let her take the Guadagnini away?’
‘She promised she’d come, Mother. I know she will.’
‘I don’t think you know much about her at all. Did she tell you what she was planning to do with the Guadagnini? I still don’t know what to make of the fact that she delivered the violin to you. Were you the one who put her up to it, Nigel?’
Nigel looked at his mother in desperation. ‘I’ve told you already. I had absolutely nothing to do with it. Nothing
at all.’
‘But you let her take the violin with her last night. Really, Nigel! Your naivety never ceases to amaze me.’
Nigel flinched at the scorn in his mother’s tone. André opened his mouth to say something, but Mrs Summerscales simply continued. ‘What if she switches it and brings us back a cheap imitation?’ she asked.
‘I believe I’d know the difference, Mother,’ Nigel said. ‘Anyway, I don’t see Karabo pulling off such an elaborate scam.’
‘You really are incredibly gullible, Nigel.’ Mrs Summerscales propped herself up on one elbow and her eyes bored into him. ‘Tell me the truth. She’s hard up, isn’t she? Africans always are. Washing up on our beaches like rubbish tipped over the side of a boat.’
She paused to rummage beneath her blanket and pulled out a blue plastic inhaler. She sucked on it greedily, then tossed it aside.
‘Karabo’s not hard up, Mother,’ Nigel said in a quiet voice. ‘I happen to know she’s on a full scholarship.’
Mrs Summerscales was about to retort when the doorbell rang. The melodious ding-dong pressed the three of them into a sudden hush.
‘About time!’ Mrs Summerscales barked. ‘Are you going to let her in or not?’
But Nigel seemed strangely reluctant to go. He looked around helplessly as if he had forgotten the way to the front door.
‘Oh, you’re pathetic!’ his mother snorted in disgust. She swept up from the sofa before André could offer to attend to the front door, and marched out of the sitting room. Presently the front door clicked open and they heard her speaking sharply to someone. Then came the sound of footsteps returning and Mrs Summerscales muttering under her breath. It didn’t sound like she was with Karabo.
‘Bloody Jehovah’s Witnesses,’ Mrs Summerscales said. ‘I thought that sort of blatant solicitation was illegal. It’s no different to prostitution, if you ask me.’
André Potgieter let out a small, self-conscious cough. ‘If I could offer an opinion, Mrs Summerscales. I hardly know the girl myself but I would never have imagined she would break into your home and steal the Guadagnini.’ He turned to Nigel. ‘Did she really think she’d get away with it?’
‘She promised to return it, Mr Potgieter,’ Nigel replied. ‘She’s probably on the underground on her way here right now.’
‘I see. The contrite burglar. It’s such a recurring trope.’ André gave a rueful shake of his head.
‘For god’s sake!’ snapped Mrs Summerscales. ‘We’re not in a literature class! I want to know what Karabo intended to do with the violin. She’s not a musician. Does she plan to sell it?’
She fell back onto the sofa with a wheeze of springs and padded upholstery.
‘There is a well-established market for antique violins,’ André pointed out. ‘I have some experience of … of Karabo’s sort.’ He modulated his voice to effect the right proportions of apology and accusation.
‘Of course,’ Mrs Summerscales interrupted. ‘You’re South African, just as she is.’
André could feel the blush on his cheeks. ‘Only in name, Mrs Summerscales. I left South Africa long ago.’ He was at pains to suggest that any vestiges of Africa still attaching to his person were as improbable as a fairytale.
Mrs Summerscales placed her hands on her lap. ‘What are you saying, Potgieter?’
‘I’m afraid Karabo is unlikely to bring the violin back of her own accord,’ André replied gravely. ‘You see, the black African is crafty and conniving by her very nature. It’s clear to me that she’s managed to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes, and Nigel’s especially.’
Mrs Summerscales’ lips compressed into a thin angry line. ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘I’m calling the police.’
‘Please, Mum!’ Nigel cried. He snatched his phone from his pocket. ‘Let me try her one last time.’ He turned away from the others and pressed the phone to his ear.
‘It’s not entirely Nigel’s fault,’ Mrs Summerscales said to André in a low voice. ‘He’s only a boy, after all, and Karabo is much more experienced.’
‘I couldn’t agree with you more,’ André murmured.
He was wondering what else to say when Mrs Summerscales stiffened and let out a loud cry. ‘What is it, Nigel? What’s the matter?’
‘It’s Karabo,’ Nigel said in a small, frightened voice. ‘I don’t think she’s in London anymore.’
Mrs Summerscales sprang to her feet. ‘What do you mean she’s not in London?’ she shouted. ‘Where’s she gone?’
Nigel swallowed hard before he answered. ‘She wouldn’t say, Mum. It was very noisy. I think she’s at the airport.’
CHAPTER 34
It wasn’t the fear of being locked up in South Kensington police station that made Karabo change her mind and decide to run. It was the way Nigel had turned on her so completely. It was as if he’d never held her hand or kissed her. Or made love to her. Or called her every night before she went to sleep. They’d used to talk until the curtains in Karabo’s room smouldered with the first light of dawn. Now, clearly, he was no different from the men who forgot a woman as soon as she’d pulled her panties back on.
It was when he’d started calling Karabo names and couching his insults in homespun anthropology that it struck her. That was when she realised the bottom had fallen out the tin and she couldn’t put it back again. Not without cutting her hands on the jagged edges. And god knew she was done bleeding.
Her mother had warned her about the English. ‘They’re not like us,’ Precious had said. She’d said this to Karabo over and over again but somehow it had never clicked. And why should it have? Karabo had been so thrilled to live in London. No one had ever called her Yellowbone in all the time she’d been there. People didn’t whisper about her in vernacular, thinking she couldn’t understand. Nobody here gave a shit about where she came from or how she spoke. They didn’t make mental calculations about the shade of her skin, then extrapolate those sums into fanciful judgements about her character. Or so she had thought.
Was she really so emotionally unstable that she’d jump chained and manacled off a ship? She regretted not calling Nigel out for that. She should have told him there and then not to be such an arsehole. Don’t be a prick, Nigel. But his unexpected onslaught had left her bewildered and exhausted, like a fish twitching feebly on the cold floor of his prejudice. Now all she wanted was to go home.
But a part of her was still fond of Nigel. She’d miss his clumsy mannerisms, not to mention the way he fucked like a porn star. Since she’d met Nigel, she’d built up a composite person from all the attributes she admired in a man, padding and sewing and buttoning him up as if he were a stuffed doll. And all it took was one tug on the string for the bloody thing to unravel.
Are you a fucking cretin?
Nigel had said those words to her but they could just as easily have been said by anyone. The porter downstairs in his black suit and grey woollen waistcoat. Or the woman who cleaned Karabo’s room and only spoke to her in hand gestures. Or André Potgieter. He wouldn’t find it hard.
Karabo stood in the middle of her room and for the first time saw it for what it was. A shabby garret she’d dressed up in layers of shining fantasy. She wondered, and not for the first time, if she’d really won her scholarship on merit as Mrs Harrison had said. She’d been far from the smartest in her class and she wasn’t the most needy either. Perhaps the Mthatha Women’s Club had been dishing out scholarships to black African females and Karabo just happened to be in the queue.
Karabo packed quickly, throwing her belongings into her suitcase. She’d brought so little with her from Mthatha that it didn’t take her very long. It felt exhilarating to be doing this and a little frightening too. She was deliberately stepping out of her lane and didn’t care if anyone clattered into her. She wasn’t running their fucking race anymore.
She remembered a day when she’d been to the Spar in Mthatha with Teacher. They were just leaving the store when Teacher bumped into a little white girl who was coming
in with her family. She must have been around four or five years old, the same age as Karabo then. She was blonde and angelic with little ribbons in her hair. The sort of girl that if you turned her around, you’d be sure to see little wings folded neatly against her back.
‘Dirty black man,’ the girl said, pointing up at Teacher.
The child’s father, a stout man with ruddy cheeks, apologised profusely to Teacher. Then he bundled his daughter in his arms and quickly carried her away. Karabo remembered there had been no malice or contempt in the girl’s voice. She could have been reciting the first line of a nursery rhyme. After that Teacher retreated into himself and didn’t say a word for the rest of the day. But Karabo had seen the deep hurt in his eyes and it had wounded her because she hadn’t known how to fix it.
Well, she knew how to fix it now. She was going home.
Karabo took the lift downstairs to the reception area. A few of the girls looked at her strangely but they didn’t ask where she was off to. Albert, the porter, was not so reticent. With his thick neck and barrel chest, he could have been a rugby prop before the gout and a slew of old man diseases got the better of him.
‘Where you goin’ with all that luggage?’ he asked in a voice that seemed to wade through thickets of phlegm.
‘Away,’ Karabo said. ‘For a few days.’
Albert was a kindly man. He closed one eye and tipped his large head to one side. Karabo willed her heart to stop beating so fast.
‘I thought you was at Bartlett,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you studying for exams?’
‘We’ve got different electives, Albert.’
All of a sudden Albert grew mournful. He looked like an overgrown child whose morning’s entertainment had come to an abrupt and unexpected end.
‘For a moment I thought you was doin’ a runner,’ he said. Then, lowering his voice and cupping a large weathered hand around his mouth, he added: ‘Some of the girls do that, you know. When their money don’t come in.’
‘I’m all paid up, Albert,’ Karabo said tartly. She didn’t have to explain herself to him.