‘You need me?’
She nods, looking down. ‘Yes, I have no choice now.’ Her voice has changed, matured. Filled out, filled up. ‘They’ve taken Lucky,’ she says. ‘The police. Because of me. Please, Pa. You have to help. I’ll tell you everything.’
35
‘Sssh, pretty lady, sssh.’
The hand clasped around her mouth is hard, calloused. It smells like dirt, old sherry, and shit; it ends in long broken nails, yellow as bile. For a moment the world consists of nothing but Freya’s mouth and the hand covering it: the way the hand is moving its forefinger up and down her cheek, the way her tongue is slightly outside of her mouth because she was silenced mid-scream. She can taste wet skin. Her own terror is still reverberating through her skull.
And then she becomes aware of more.
There is a knee against the back of her own knee. There is the sour breath on her cheek, from someone whispering. A female voice.
She stops struggling.
She is in the dead end of a street. In front of her, closed for the night (a tall grey fence, a padlock) is the train station. Harsh spotlights light up the tracks and the surrounding area. To her right is a set of kiosks – liquor and cigarettes – also closed for the night. To her left is a stairwell that reaches into the ground and runs underneath the tracks: access to the opposite platform. Beyond the stairwell is a dusty weed-covered sidewalk. And past that, darkness.
‘Hush, pretty lady,’ the voice says, and she feels the grip on her loosen. Freya immediately twitches away and around, looking behind her. The street is empty, at least as much of it as she can see. The island of light at the end of this street isn’t very big.
‘Were you the one following me?’ Freya asks.
‘No, lady. No one is following you. Just you. And me.’ The woman smiles, and Freya is forced to look at her properly. She is Freya’s height, although she has a slight stoop; she is dressed in layers of rags, and her head is wrapped in a grimy headdress. She is looking at Freya with genuine curiosity. ‘The train is closed,’ she says, pointing a sure finger at the station. ‘No going home tonight. No train, no taxi. Just me.’
‘Do you have a phone?’
‘No, no, no. No phone. No house. Just this.’ She holds up a stuffed canvas bag to the light, and then snatches it back to her chest. ‘And this,’ she adds, pointing down into the stairwell. ‘No rain.’
‘You sleep there?’
‘Yes. No rain.’
‘But it’s winter.’
The woman looks up at the sky for a second, wondering at the stars. She puts a fingertip on her tongue before slowly reaching it into the sky. ‘Yes,’ she agrees. ‘Winter.’ Her teeth are the colour of tea, dirt.
‘But it doesn’t rain in winter,’ Freya insists.
The woman considers this, then shakes her head. ‘Where are you going?’ the woman asks.
‘Nowhere,’ Freya says. ‘Back there. I got lost.’ She is still shaking, still bewildered by the chase. ‘Why were you following me?’ Freya asks again.
‘Not following. Not me. Not me.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘My name,’ the woman says, taking a step towards Freya, ‘is Cheery. I am Cheery.’
Cheery takes another step closer and extends a hand. Freya can see bloodstains on Cheery’s hand, can smell urine and unwashed skin; it mingles with the smell of old iron and cold cement that hangs over the train station.
‘Do you have food?’ Cheery asks.
‘You are homeless?’ Freya asks, shaking her head. No, no food.
‘No. I am Cheery.’ Cheery’s hand is still lingering in the air, where it remains untouched by Freya.
‘Right. Well, I’m going to go, Cheery. It was nice to meet you.’
‘No! No, lady stay. You stay.’ Cheery pulls a knife from inside the collection of her rags, and moves towards Freya very quickly. ‘Give me your things. Phone, gun. Shoes too.’ Her voice is low, a voice that has been burnt by thousands of cigarettes. ‘Or I will do this.’ Cheery pulls aside a rag to reveal her stomach. With her forefinger she points towards her navel. Freya has to look down awkwardly in order to see what she is pointing at: around the sunken navel, there is deep scarring, where a knife has carved into Cheery’s skin.
‘Who did this to you?’
‘A man. Long ago, a man,’ she whispers, leaning in as she speaks. Only a millimetre, but a millimetre is enough. The knife breaks into Freya’s skin; she feels the first drop of blood leave her body. A small cut, a sharp knife. ‘Your things,’ Cheery repeats, smiling, ‘all your things.’
Freya’s gun is in its holster beneath her hand; she’ll need to move fast if she wants to use it. But it won’t be faster than Cheery’s knife. She looks into her assailant’s eyes, large and tinted with desperation. Cheery needs to eat, needs the money. Freya doesn’t need her phone; she doesn’t need her shoes. Her car keys, at least, are still a secret. ‘You can have my shoes, Cheery. And my phone, if you want. And my cigarettes. But not my gun.’
Cheery shakes her head. ‘Everything. I need everything.’
‘You can’t have my gun.’
Cheery’s face changes. Like mud under the sun, it coarsens, cracks. ‘Everything, lady. Especially gun.’
Freya doesn’t have to think before she acts, doesn’t have to consider her options.
She’s used up all her fear reserves, drained them away while she thought she was being followed. Shame at her own cowardice has hardened into something uglier. She cannot show fear if she wants to succeed. She cannot show fear if she wants to avenge her brother. Fear is for the weak. Fear and grief and uncertainty are all parts of the same debilitation – sodden emotions that lie at the bottom of your stomach like an anchor. But anger, anger and determination – those are burning, moving things. Engines, vigorous and vital.
She won’t be stopped, won’t be chased, won’t be threatened.
Before she knows it, she has moved: she jumps back and smooths her gun from her side in one fluid motion. The movement forces Cheery’s knife upwards, and Freya feels it cut into her side, but she doesn’t care now.
Pain. Pain is fuel.
Cheery’s knife falls to the ground, dislodged by Freya’s momentum.
Freya moves fast, fiercely. She jumps on the fragile beggar and tackles her. She is on top of Cheery within seconds, her gun held aloft. Cheery falls onto the tar and Freya hears the snap of bone, the swallowing of pain. She brings her gun down on Cheery’s face with as much force as she can muster. It tears open skin.
Freya strikes again. And again. And again.
Wound.
Hurt.
Cheery doesn’t struggle, nor does she cry out or scream for help. She’s stuffed her fist in her own mouth and is accepting the beating, head turned away. She is submitting. But Freya is beyond mercy. Her heart is intoxicated, beating fast. A switch has been flicked: from flight to fight.
Her gun comes down again.
There is blood; on her jeans, on her leather jacket; gleaming black smears on her gleaming black things. But it isn’t enough.
Again.
Again, again, again.
Until there is no more face left.
Just blood, just bone.
Before
1
Ben ran his finger along the branches of the tattoo. The skin was firm and cold. ‘You’re giving me goosebumps.’
‘Sorry.’
They were lying in bed, naked and unhurried. Pre-dawn light was filtering in through the windows. ‘So last night was fun,’ said Ben. It was almost a question.
‘Yes, it was,’ said Leo, ‘really fun.’ He leant over and kissed Ben. ‘Bit of a blur, though.’
Ben was quiet. Flashes of the previous night came to him. The club, the cheap wine, kissing in the bathroom, smoking a joint, running into the garage shop to buy condoms. ‘That guy Steve . . . he’s your ex?’
Leo eyed him up and down. ‘Yes. We dated for a while, fucked around.’
<
br /> ‘But not any more?’
‘Nah. Now he’s just my drug dealer.’
‘He deals?’
‘Yeah. His parents are broke. He needs the cash. He works for some drug lord – apparently the guy is responsible for all the drugs around here. It pays well.’
Ben was surprised – all the drugs? Who knew the campus was so flush? But Leo read something else in his eyes. ‘Why? Are you looking for a new job?’
‘What, like dealing drugs?’
‘Yeah. Steve says the guy is always looking for new dealers. Apparently, he likes using students. But students graduate. Steve tried to get me involved. Eric too. But . . .’
‘But you’re too respectable?’
‘Well, my daddy is a pastor, you know,’ he says, the American accent falling flat.
‘Yeah, yeah. The poor pastor’s son seduced by the bright Pretoria lights. Drugs, alcohol—’
‘And pretty Pretoria boys.’
‘Is that supposed to be me?’
Leo smiled. ‘Dunno, I’m still deciding.’
‘Your parents are dead?’ Leo asked later, his big eyes the exact colour of the cold coffee he was holding. His underwear was too small for him. The smoke from his cigarette fell away into the darkness of the open window. Ben was still sitting on the bed, naked and dazed.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes.’
‘How?’
‘Car crash.’
‘And you have no other family?’
‘My sister. My sister is all I have,’ he said, before he remembered, ‘oh, and my cousin. Or great-aunt. Or something. But she’s’ – he took a cigarette that Leo handed him – ‘not important.’
‘Not important?’
Ben got up and joined Leo, balancing himself on the windowsill. He looked out onto the street, and down onto the tops of the trees directly below the building, which were bare and sharp and moaning. ‘We didn’t know her. Before. She just kind of showed up afterwards. And . . . she means well, but it’s as if she doesn’t know how real emotions work. Like she’s just read about them. She’s a psychologist. Freya and I don’t like to see her.’
‘Freya? That’s your sister?’
‘Yup.’
‘You two are close?’
‘We live together.’
‘Does she know . . . I mean, will she find out about me?’
Ben flicked his finished cigarette out into the night; the little red ember glowed brightly just before it vanished, suffocated by the cold air. He took Leo’s hand. ‘Eventually.’
2
Ben and his sister spoke about their parents, and how they died, quite frequently. It was an easy thing for one of them to bring it up, and it was triggered by an eclectic list of things. Ben knew, for example, that if Freya was reading a book in which a parent died, she would become preoccupied by how her own grief – or their grief together – measured up to the grief experienced by the characters in the novel. It would become an experiment in compare and contrast, and she would quiz him endlessly about how he felt, frowning all the time, worried she hadn’t dealt with it properly.
And he didn’t mind; speaking about the thing that happened that night was a way of keeping their parents alive. A conversation about the end would always lead to a conversation about what it was like before the end, and these conversations were usually happy ones. They could carry on for days, interrupted by sleep and classes and friends, but would always end with them both feeling contented, more like themselves.
Sometimes, the conversation turned otherwise. ‘Do you remember the summer that Dad didn’t live at home?’ Freya would ask him, a dark thing fluttering across her face like a wing. He did, of course. But she remembered that summer much more vividly than he did; he found he always had to dig it back up, bring it forth, and it always came slowly. Every time he remembered less, more vaguely. For Freya, it was different. Every time she remembered it, it was with more colour, with more feeling. ‘He had to be sent away because he hit us,’ she would say, surprised all over again.
‘He never hit me,’ Ben would say.
‘You just don’t remember that he did.’ And then she would brood for days, moving through the flat in silence. He wasn’t lying when he told her that he didn’t remember ever being hit by their father. He hadn’t been an easy man; he was strict and distant and humourless – but Ben had always believed that their father loved them as best he could: from afar. And left it up to their mother to provide the love and warmth needed to raise children. When he thought of his parents, his mother was always closer to him than his father, right up against the edge of the memory, a bright intense presence. And his father hovered somewhere in the back of the memory, colder and less definite.
But he didn’t remember any abuse.
It was as if Freya’s memories had begun to ripen, to ferment: the happy memories were intensely happy, always filled with sunlight. And the unhappy memories were heavy and dark and full of unspoken terror. He often thought it was because she was the one who had seen it happen, while he had slept through it. Sometimes when these conversations slipped off the edge, he could sense that she blamed him for not being there too; that in that single instance their experience differed. This was the one rift – chasm – that existed between them.
All of this, of course, remained an internal thing: they spoke about it only to each other. It was a past, a violence, which belonged only to them. To the outside world they presented a united lie: a car accident, long ago. A car crash seemed cleaner; a story that was less interesting, that would elicit fewer questions from people. They had it practised perfectly: when the subject came up, they dealt with it as efficiently as possible. The only other person who knew, aside from the police, was Cousin Ash, whom they kept at a mighty distance as soon as they could get rid of her. The police never arrested anyone, never made a single attempt to contact them again after the initial inquiry. As far as Ben was concerned, their parents’ case was still open.
To be honest, and this he had never spoken to Freya about, it wasn’t the questions that Ben minded, or the shock. It was the pity. Somehow, a car crash earned less pity than an armed robbery. Accident is less heart-breaking than murder; the violence of the truth always seemed to upset people so much more than the ordinariness of a car crash.
Everyone had car crashes. Not everyone’s mother was raped.
So they lied. They lied to anyone who asked, so well and sincerely that it had become second nature. They lied to everyone but each other.
Of course, lately, Ben had begun doing that, too.
3
A big neon sign that rose above the palm trees planted along the kerb bore the Lollipop name in flashing bubble letters.
Ben’s favourite spot, the Lollipop Roadhouse was essentially a parking lot, with an L-shaped building set back against the furthest corner. The lines demarcating the parking spots had faded, so Ben usually just pulled up as close to the kitchen as he could. Ben ordered a hamburger, then wandered off to the petrol-station shop to buy cigarettes. The air was a symphony of petrol fumes and old cooking oil. Lollipop sat at the very bottom corner of Church Street, the winding tributary that bled all the way from Church Square, through Sunnyside and Hatfield, to the edge of inner Pretoria, finally washing out onto the N1, the highway that wound its way down the country, through every major city and every throwaway town till it hit the Atlantic Ocean.
There were usually a few students, hungry before a night of partying, or out on a study break. Truck drivers, filling up at the adjacent petrol station. A couple of drifters in beat-up cars, unfocused eyes shifting suspiciously beneath threadbare caps.
His hamburger was delivered to his car window by a smiling waiter. The idea was, Ben supposed, to eat in your car. But most people drove off as soon as their food was delivered. He wondered how many people ditched without paying.
Set against the back wall of the parking lot, next to the kitchen, and surrounded by more palm trees, was a row of table
s. Each table was folded into its own little enclave, closed off by large plant beddings and roofed by the palm trees, so that you couldn’t see what was happening at the next table. It made these spaces gloomy and cool and private, and Ben took refuge in this, looking out onto Lollipop and the street beyond from the darkness.
He fingered the Pokémon sticker on the back of his phone. He hated it when people were late. Across the busy street, another neon sign was flashing. A red flamingo, radiating into the night around it. The sign, and the house it was advertising, was enclosed behind a tall wall and a big security gate. As Ben watched, a shadowy figure was let out of the gate by a bouncer. Ben could easily imagine the satisfied look on the figure’s face as he walked quickly away from Flamingos, a famous strip club and brothel. The figure walked to his car, and Ben watched as a car guard came running out of the night, stopping against the figure’s window as he pulled out of his parking spot. The car window opened and Ben saw a glint of silver as coins exchanged hands. The car sped away.
The car guard then turned and crossed the street, making his way to the Lollipop Roadhouse.
The car guard walked up to Ben slowly, holding his right leg stiff as if it couldn’t bear any weight. He stopped just outside the shadows of the table and bent down to tie a shoelace. ‘It’s me,’ the car guard said, looking up. ‘Give me the cash.’ Ben examined the car guard’s face slowly. He had to be careful, even though he was prepared for the disguise; but yes, he recognised him. Ben took a roll of money from his pocket and put it next to him on the seat. The car guard’s hand shot out and grabbed. ‘Did you get a new phone?’ the car guard asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Contact me on that from now on. We can cut out the middleman.’ The car guard straightened up and winked at him, just as the owner of the Lollipop came out of his kitchen and began shouting obscenities at him.
‘No free food here!’
The car guard turned around and shrugged at the owner, before walking off.
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