Ruth put the bottle down and then took a deep, bracing breath. “Listen, Dee. I know you’ve had a really shitty few months. Believe me, I know. And I have too, what with my separation and me missing Vince so damn much. I know we didn’t get off to the best start, which, to be honest, is mostly your fault because you’re a pain in my ass and not exactly a party to be around. But I hate seeing you this miserable and not being able to do anything about it—”
“Ruth, I—”
“Shh, let me finish. We’re stuck here together and in case you haven’t noticed, it’s us against the world. Between Mandla and the farm, we’re public enemy number one and I don’t know about you, but I’d be able to handle it much better if you and I weren’t waging a constant battle against each other.” She looked away and then looked back at me, her eyes pleading. “We don’t have to like each other, Dee, but can we just try and get along a bit better? And please just let me host this celebration for you. I know it probably won’t make you feel better, but it will make me feel less helpless, okay?”
I didn’t trust myself to speak when she was finished or to look at the tears that had formed in her eyes as she spoke. Instead, I lifted up my champagne flute and held it out for her. Ruth whooped as she filled it.
“Cheers!” I took a sip and forced myself not to wince at the dryness. “You weren’t joking about everything being roasted,” I said, forcing a smile as I looked at the spread of chicken, potatoes, sweetended baby carrots, and creamed spinach. “I didn’t know you could cook.”
“I’m a woman of many talents.” Ruth winked.
“I don’t doubt it.” We started dishing up, handing each other bowls and gravy, and remarking on how good the food looked. As we started eating, we lapsed into an awkward silence that I tried to fill by blurting out the first thing that came to mind. “Were you really a stripper?”
“Yes.” Ruth laughed, clearly taken aback by the direction the conversation was going in.
“Sorry, it’s none of my business.”
“Not at all. I’ve always preferred people who speak their minds even if what’s on their minds isn’t always appropriate or polite. At least you always know where you stand with them. So, go ahead and ask whatever you want.”
“Okay. You took your clothes off? For your profession?”
“Yes.”
“And you danced with a snake?”
“Sometimes. It was a python called Frank.”
“Frank? Frank the python?”
She shrugged. “What can I say? He looked like Frank Sinatra. Same beady eyes and womanizing tendencies.”
I laughed, feeling some of the tension from my neck ease. “You weren’t scared of it?”
“I was squeamish with it the first few times, but after you’ve had a python crap and pee on you, you come to think of it more as a baby and less as a potentially dangerous animal. The fact that it was so heavy that I had to wheel it around in a pram also helped make me think of it as a baby, though unsuspecting people who peered inside didn’t agree.”
I laughed and took another sip of the champagne, which was growing on me, before I remembered something. “I thought the law at the time prohibited stripping?”
“No, it stated that you couldn’t leave the stage with less clothes than what you came on wearing. So I had to put them back on during the act without it looking like the show was over and I was just hurriedly getting dressed.” She topped up our glasses. “Who told you all this, by the way?”
“Ma wrote me a few letters.”
“I’m sure she had a lot to say about it, though she didn’t have a problem with all the money I sent home since it helped keep the farm afloat.”
And there we were after all the levity, back at the farm, which was the biggest bone of contention between us. “I thought you’d sell the farm after Ma died,” I said.
“No,” Ruth replied. “We wouldn’t have gotten a good price for it, so I rented out the land, which paid for its upkeep. Besides, I promised Da . . .”
“What?”
“Nothing, doesn’t matter.” Ruth looked shifty but I didn’t want to press her on it. I wasn’t interested in anything to do with Da anyway.
“So you made a lot of money? From the stripping?”
“Not just the stripping. The public appearances and everything else that goes along with it. But yes, I did well enough that I never had to write a tell-all memoir or do a documentary, which I’ve been hounded to do for years.”
I was about to ask her what had happened to all that money and why she was strapped for cash when Ruth suddenly jumped up.
“I almost forgot! I got you a present.” She ran to her room and returned with a beautifully wrapped gift.
I immediately felt bad. “Oh, Ruth, you shouldn’t have. I didn’t get you anything.”
“Don’t worry about it.” She waved it off. “It’s for your birthday, not for Christmas. Open it.”
I took it from her and slowly set about unwrapping it, gently tugging at the tape so as not to tear the paper.
“Oh my God, this is painful to watch,” Ruth yelped, grabbing the package back from me and ripping it to shreds before passing back the box. “Here.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said wryly, lifting the lid.
“It’s a silk kimono,” Ruth squealed as I was still removing the tissue paper. “Like mine!”
I couldn’t think of anything less suited to me. “Ah, so it is.”
“I know what you’re thinking,” Ruth said.
I doubted it. “What?”
“That I couldn’t have gotten you anything less suited to you, but that’s not true. It’s beige, see? Your favorite color.” She looked so pleased with herself that I had to laugh.
As the afternoon wore on, Ruth and I switched over to wine and continued to tease each other while laughing and speaking of inconsequential things. We were behaving so much like I imagined normal sisters did, and I was enjoying it so much, that I felt I could broach the topic of the baby without it leading to a fight. “So, what have you decided to do about Mandla?”
Ruth’s expression changed so quickly from one of contentment to anguish that I wished I hadn’t brought it up. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s all I think about and I just keep going around and around in circles.”
The fact that she hadn’t dismissed taking him flat out of hand surprised me. It showed a depth of emotion and a strength of character I’d never suspected. “You found out about his prognosis on that course you went on? How unlikely he is to survive beyond his second birthday?”
“Yes, I know all that but—”
Ruth didn’t get to finish her sentence. Instead, she screamed as the window behind her disintegrated, sending shards of glass shattering inward.
Jezebel, who’d been lying near it, scrambled to her feet and scampered away just in time to avoid the second rock, which took out the remaining lounge window. I reached out to grab her, pulling her toward me by the scruff of her neck.
When Ruth stood, I thought she was coming around to my side of the table to duck for cover, but instead, she turned toward the front of the house. I’d never seen such a look of fury on her face. Glass crunched under her heels as she marched toward the front door.
“Jesus, Ruth! What are you doing? Get away from there.”
But she wasn’t listening. She unlocked the door and yanked it open, waving her fist in the air as she screamed, “You fuckers are messing with the wrong women, do you hear me? You’re going to regret the day you were fucking born!”
An hour later, when the bubble of our conviviality had truly burst and we were cleaning up the debris, I returned us firmly back to earth by saying, “Think about what you’re doing, Ruth, wanting to bring an innocent child into this.” I gestured at the broken glass and the rocks. “Even if he were healthy, which he isn’t, it’s not safe her
e for him.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Ruth
27 December 1994
New Beginnings Baby Sanctuary, Rustenburg, South Africa
Dee’s words from Christmas Day are still chasing themselves around my mind when I sit down across from the social worker two days later.
Lindiwe has to repeat my name a few times before managing to pull me back into the present. “I don’t suppose you’d consider fostering another child? A healthy one?” Lindiwe asks.
“No. That’s not how it works,” I say. “It’s not like I came here wanting to foster a child and happened to find Mandla. It’s Mandla who found me and then led me here.”
Lindiwe nods. “I understand.”
“No, I don’t think you do,” I say.
I almost don’t understand it myself. How can I, when there’s no rational way to explain the attachment I have to Mandla? We spent less than two days together and honestly, what is that really? What’s forty-two hours when measured against a lifetime?
And yet, what it comes down to is that one minute I lived a life without any knowledge of him at all and then the next, there he was like magic; as if my desperate need had conjured him from a hat—abracadabra, sim sala bim—and made every dream I’d ever had come true. Of all the places he could have been left, it was on my doorstep that he turned up. That had to mean something.
Actually, it means everything.
“After a lot of soul searching,” I say to Lindiwe, “I realized there’s no decision to be made because it was never going to be a choice. Mandla belongs with me and that is that.” And it’s true. “Now, let’s finish the last of the paperwork so he can come home.”
* * *
• • •
The call is harder to make than I thought it would be. I work my way through two cigarettes and another glass of wine before I’m able to dial the number.
He answers on the third ring. “Hello?” There’s music and laughter in the background and the unexpected sound of it makes it hard to speak. “Hello?” he repeats.
“Vince, it’s me.”
He’s having a party but then why shouldn’t he? It’s the festive season and he’s rid of me. What’s not to celebrate?
“Ruth?”
I think back to the previous Christmas, our last one together though I didn’t know that at the time. We’d turned down all the usual invitations and spent Christmas Day alone together, eating gourmet toasted cheese sandwiches in bed, to hell with the crumbs. It was a damn good day.
“I can hear it isn’t a good time for you,” I say. “I’ll call back.”
“No, it’s fine.” He must have the portable phone because the noise starts to fade and then it’s quiet. He’s probably closed himself in the bedroom. “Is everything okay?”
No, it’s not. You’re having a party without me because you’ve moved on. I’m fostering a child who’s going to die soon. We’re under attack in our home. I miss you.
I can’t help but wonder who’s there. You can bet your tits that Moira Castleman has been sniffing around Vince. Bitch.
“Ruth?”
“What?”
“I asked if everything’s okay?”
“Yes, it’s fine. It’s all fine. Couldn’t be better, actually.”
“I’m glad.”
We lapse into silence and I swear I can hear bloody Moira’s hyena laugh in the background. I wish suddenly that I hadn’t shipped the framed magazine cover to myself here. Knowing it was there for her to look at would make me feel a lot better.
“Not that I don’t like hearing from you, Ruthie, I do, but is there a reason why you called?”
Shit. Here goes nothing.
I take a deep breath and swallow my pride. And then I ask Vince for quite a substantial loan.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Delilah
28 January 1995
Verdriet, Magaliesburg, South Africa
Are you sure you won’t come with me?” Ruth asked, looking so desperate for me to change my mind that I had to look away from her reflection in the bathroom mirror. “I know you don’t approve, but that doesn’t mean you can’t join me and be disapproving there.”
“You know how I feel about this. I think you’re making a mistake,” I said.
She rolled a curler into her hair, talking past a bobby pin in her mouth. “You said it wasn’t safe to bring him home and so I fixed that. I made it safe!”
She wasn’t exaggerating. The place was like Fort Knox, thanks to the loan she’d gotten from her estranged husband. If money couldn’t buy happiness, then it sure could buy peace of mind.
For the past month, contractors and security experts had worked flat out to turn our home into a fortress. High electric fences were erected around the house, isolating it from the rest of the sprawling property, and the only way to access it was through an electric gate that was set up with security cameras and an intercom.
All the windows and doors had been burglar-proofed and sensors were installed along the garden perimeter so that if anyone breached the fence, we’d know about it before they reached the house. A state-of-the-art alarm system was set up inside as well.
“A bird can’t fart near the house without our knowing,” Ruth had said proudly once all the work was finished.
I couldn’t help but think that Daniel would still be alive if the rectory where he’d lived had had this kind of security. The depressing part was that the security company hadn’t even asked why we were having to go to such extreme measures to ensure our safety. Gated communities and security estates were springing up everywhere as violent crime increased.
“You can’t protect yourself enough from the kaffirs,” one of the contractors had said to Ruth.
“Actually, all of this is to protect a kaffir from the whites,” Ruth had replied cheerfully. “And don’t say kaffir.”
The expression on his face had been priceless.
“He’s going to be safe here. We all are,” Ruth said now. “It’s going to be fine, you’ll see.”
“I wish I understood,” I said, shaking my head.
“What?”
“This whim of yours. Why you suddenly so desperately want this child.”
“Whim?” She put the second curler down and turned around to face me. “You think this is a whim?” Before I could answer, she barreled on. “I had my first miscarriage when I was twenty-one. They said it happened all the time and that I was young, that I’d get pregnant again. And they were right, I did, when I was twenty-three. But I lost that baby as well. I fell pregnant for the third time when I was twenty-seven. Another miscarriage at twelve weeks. They ran a whole bunch of tests and still couldn’t figure out what the problem was.
“The fourth and fifth miscarriages were with my second husband, Jacques, when I was twenty-nine and then thirty-one. The last one was really bad, and I almost bled to death, and so that was it. No more pregnancies.” She’d been reciting the information in a dry, factual voice but then it cracked. “The thing is, I’d never felt as complete as I did for those few weeks of each of my pregnancies. It was like I’d had this gaping hole inside me my whole life that was suddenly filled.”
I inhaled sharply, surprised. “That’s exactly how I felt when I entered the convent. Like God completed me.”
“Maybe we’re all born with that piece of us missing and our life’s journey is about finding it. Finding that one thing that makes us whole,” Ruth said.
“It’s dangerous, though. That belief that something can complete you.”
“No, it’s not. It’s what keeps us going, don’t you see that?”
“Mandla isn’t going to complete you, Ruth. And I told you months ago that I wanted no part of this,” I said quietly. “I told you I couldn’t be around a baby, but you’ve given me no choice in the matter.”
“Exactly,” I said before I could stop myself. “And what would the point of that be?”
We both knew what I meant: that Mandla was terminally ill and it was just a matter of time before he died. Why love someone who was guaranteed to break your heart?
Ruth went pale. “That’s the thing about love that you never understood. It doesn’t need a point.” I turned and just as I left the bathroom, she called, “Tell me, did it hurt less losing Daniel because you’d never let yourself fully love him in the first place?” When I didn’t reply, she said, “That’s what I thought.”
* * *
• • •
It took me a minute to figure out the source of the trilling noise because we hadn’t had a visitor since the security system had gone up. Jezebel barked madly, running around in circles as I went to the intercom. I shushed her and then pressed the button. “Yes, hello?”
“Delilah?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Riaan. I hope this isn’t a bad time. I thought I’d stop by to see how you are.”
I didn’t need to switch the monitor on to verify that it was him. I’d know that voice anywhere. I pressed the button to let him in and then found myself in the bathroom, staring at my reflection to make sure I was presentable. I flattened my hair and then, scoffing at how ridiculous I was being, ran my hand through it again to muss it up.
I opened the door to let Riaan in and watched, amused, as Jezebel jumped all over him like he was a long-lost friend. “It’s too hot for coffee,” I surprised myself by saying. “Would you like a beer?” God knows, I needed one. He accepted the offer and we went outside to the patio. “How have you been? What’s new?” I asked, surprised that I was really interested and not just making conversation.
If You Want to Make God Laugh Page 17