by H. J Golakai
Vee gave him the finger. ‘When Celine Dion stops freaking me out. Why do you look like …’ she mussed her hand over his overgrown hair, the stubble on his face, the hole in his T-shirt, ‘… a homeless turd? You’re supposed to be an expat, a high-powered finance exec. Have some pride.’
‘I had some time off. I’m allowed to cut loose too, y’know.’ Joshua shot an eye across the street and his heart dipped. Vee followed his gaze. Her eyebrows cocked at the sight of the pricey boots, prowling a hole into the concrete of the parking lot, a frown on the face of the wearer. ‘Ohhh,’ she smirked. ‘Shopping with the missus, and she looks twitchy. My bad.’
Joshua grunted. ‘Cut that out; she can wait. Let me walk you to your car. It’s getting late and you’re loitering around, enticing muggers …’
‘My car’s two steps away. And the French Canadian songbird isn’t finished …’
‘You hate this song. C’mon.’ He steered her by the elbow, the back of his neck itching thanks to the laser of annoyance drilling into it from across the road. He’d patch that up later. ‘You look good,’ he said. ‘Much better. Happier.’
‘I’m working on something.’
He lifted his eyebrows.
‘Good question. Time will tell.’ She crunched the cone down to a nub, eyes planets away.
Oh, Jesus. Joshua studied what he could of her profile in the half light, the almost too-muchness in the slant of cheekbone and plumpness of mouth. Her mind was on the grind and the process was practically audible: shit unspooling, hacked and bashed to pieces and spliced back together in a digestible, Voinjama-approved format. ‘What’re you doing?’
‘Nothing! Jeez. Why everybody always think I’m doing something?’ He said nothing. ‘Okay, not nothing. A small something. I’m still figuring out what, though.’
‘Your somethings can derail into a series of weird, very bad other things.’
‘That’s because … you know … circumstances get away from me.’
‘No, it’s because your process is so moronic that it circles back on itself and just about manages to squeak under the door and turn out brilliant. Face it. You got a thing for starting fires when you’ve got no water on standby.’
‘Msshw,’ Vee sucked her teeth and poked a finger near his nose. ‘Don’t shrink me. Just because you know a few of my problems …’
He quirked his eyebrows again. A few?
Vee pulled open the Corolla’s door and eased in. ‘Dickhead. I’ll see you later.’
‘I’ll hold you to that,’ he called after her.
6
‘You sure you don’t want something to eat?’
Vee drained her cup of Ovaltine and ahh-ed in satisfaction. ‘Nope. Can’t stay. And don’t give me that look.’
‘Bheti whyyii?’ Connie pouted. ‘I’m coming to cook any minute now.’
‘Yeah, you coming. Christmas coming. I only came for the ambiance, anyway.’ Vee stretched her feet out. ‘Y’all know how to make noise like market people round here.’
And it served her purposes. Connie’s flat in Rondebosch was the antidote to the imperious silence of her own house that she wanted to avoid right now, the white noise she needed. Tonight had been no disappointment. Connie’s younger sister Adesuwa’s whining about her financial woes was tuned to the perfect pitch, warbling over the baseline of Ikenna jumping up and down on every surface that could support him, refusing to be put to bed. Connie worked the books with her two employees, deaf to the din, Napoleonic in her approach to success.
‘Thanks again for taking Ikenna to the paed for that chest cold,’ Connie said. The lounge had emptied, Suwa out getting takeaways and Ikenna asleep at last on Vee’s lap. ‘I waited two weeks for that appointment, and Suwa couldn’t leave classes to do it. If I’d lost it, haaay!’ She pushed out her mouth at the prospect. ‘That WI not funny. No sympathy for the plight of those with no lives.’
‘You tellin’ me,’ Vee said. Before Connie pounced on the loose thread and started grilling her about whether she’d made her appointment, which would no doubt be followed by a cuss-out that she hadn’t, she hurried on: ‘Speaking of the walking dead, guess who I bumped into this evening at Pick n Pay, looking like a shoeshine boy?’
It took a second. Connie put down her wine glass. ‘Oh-o-o-o! And so we begin. Again. What did he say? Did he do that sleepy-eyed smiling thing? Did you tingle?’
‘What? No. We didn’t talk much. Don’t start your fwehn-fwehn noise about–’
‘Laaa-yah! Lies. You know what your problem is? You’re ungrateful.’ She popped a hand up over Vee’s protest. ‘Shut up. America don waste plenti moni on your jagajaga country and you still refuse to aid one of their citizens. That man’s been massaging your ego forever, and you won’t give him some ass. Give the man some ass, please. At least, let him lick something. This is bordering on animal cruelty.’
‘Jesus be a fence …’ Vee scooped Ikenna up and headed for the bedrooms. ‘You somebody Ma, o!’ she hissed.
‘I know, right. Pregnancy arrived by bus.’ Connie winked and made a lewd gesture. ‘Old-fashioned stress relief. You can’t say you don’t need it. Stretch those long legs.’
‘Ikenna, dis your Ma get mouf like street walker,’ Vee whispered to her sleeping godson. ‘Shameless.’
‘Msshw. Shame is for lonely people. Like me.’ Connie drained her glass and smacked it down. ‘Abeg, leave my house.’
Vee complied, hitting the road for home soon afterwards. A quiet evening and a full belly were all she now craved, preferably in a dark room where she could zone out uninterrupted.
Till then …
Running into Joshua Allen on the street wasn’t the surprise. Her reaction to seeing him was the thing. She’d almost forgotten how uplifting it was seeing another friendly face, one that knew her unfriendly past. In the four years they’d known each other, his exterior hadn’t changed at all. Height and build perfect for swimming or track, but wasted on a joker who refused to take any sport seriously for long. Heavy, sloe eyes that rescued his face from being too sharp and odd. That infuriating shit-eating grin when he could be bothered. Their meet-and-greet had typified Allen’s ambience: materialise looking like a soggy pile of crap, rattle her chains with some nameless beauty hating on the sidelines, then disappear.
Wow, he’s thirty, Vee thought suddenly. About five weeks ago. Time was growing him up. It was depressing how their lives had been, and would continue to be, careening down paths unpaved, both of them as unprepared as children. Broken dolls. Joshua had come to Cape Town on a quest for the Holy Grail, the perfect family. She’d come to follow her heart. Fat lot of good that pursuit had done them.
He was the product of an African-American history professor who’d fallen for a Hindu anti-apartheid activist exiled in the US. When the democratic tide had turned against the apartheid regime, exiles had begun to trickle home. His old man had returned and married respectably within the Indian community, letting time wither the American connection. Joshua had been six when his father had returned for good, never looking back.
Nearly twenty years later, Joshua had boarded a plane. The reception he’d received had been far from rosy. The final slap in the face had come when an uninterested family on the African continent had refused to acknowledge his existence and a loving one in America had kindly advised that he bury the past for peace of mind. Older and wiser, he now called Cape Town home away from home. He’d never admit it, but Vee knew he drew an illicit thrill from the proximity to his old man. The hovering nightmare, the illegitimate pin itching to burst the well-constructed bubble of a traditional paterfamilias. Lazy vengeance was right up his alley.
Vee idled at a red traffic light. She hadn’t seen Joshua in a while; his reappearance had dredged up a lot that she would much rather forget. If she was being completely unfair – and what was driving alone on a mild winter evening, back to an empty house, if not a green light to do whatever the hell she wanted? – then it could be said that her predicamen
t was all Joshua Allen’s fault. He was friends with Titus Wreh, and Titus Wreh had torn her heart out and pissed on it. Had Joshua not been living here, maybe neither she nor Titus would’ve had the bright idea to leave New York, which spelled the beginning of their end.
Fine, it was a stretch, and even she knew it. Titus had been hunting for a change of scene, preferably one on the continent and, like many in the know, to avoid the worst of the global economic crash. She’d hardly wanted to say it to his face but her ex, a Liberian–American hybrid who’d lived three quarters of his life abroad, tended to paint his expectations with an overly rosy finish. Before long, the empty romance of ‘returning to the Motherland’ had become reality, one she should’ve put brakes on. But … a woman in love was not a well-reasoning organism. She had a commendable master’s degree from a fine institution in hand, the world was her oyster, fortune favours the brave and love would find a way, and all that. She’d landed a temporary position with an independent news agency to complement Titus’s new job with Deloitte, and they’d packed their bags.
Now, here she was. From engaged, employed and happy to a mess, drowning in the fulminant fuckery that was her new normal.
The ghost of an ache, surely a phantom sensation, started up in her abdomen. Vee sneaked a hand under her sweater and rubbed the tiny ridge of a scar, one hand on the wheel. Wisdom and self-awareness had come at an astronomically high price. Waking up in a hospital post-op, minus an ovary and a foetus she’d had no idea she was nourishing. Signing on full time with a goddamn fashion magazine because she was out of job options. Being miserable, broke, abandoned … or, to put it another way, unceremoniously un-fiancéed, if there was such a thing. A blizzard of blows.
‘What am I s’posed to say when I’m all choked up and you’re okay? I’m falling to piiieeeces yeah,’ crooned Danny O’Donoghue of The Script, his heart breaking unevenly all over 5FM radio.
‘I hear you, o,’ Vee muttered, switching it off.
Not since she was maybe ten years old had she anticipated a birthday, but turning twenty-nine in a month’s time held the promise of a new beginning. Twenty-nine felt like the last phase of a painfully drawn-out ripening. It would be wiser. Lonelier, more bitter, more sexually frustrated. Definitely poorer. But fuck it, she was ready.
She taxied into the garage and slammed the door as she got out, a noise bound to bring her dog running. Having her own place was the best and she didn’t miss having a roommate. The last one, Mia, had been lovely, wild of hair and brimming with spiritual guru-ism, but time had exposed that she was about ninety degrees short of a right angle. Never had Vee met a person less suited to the sane, regular rules of cohabitation. Her snobby cats Ginger and Wasabi, strict sushi diet and unrelenting peppiness had pushed Vee over the edge. Luckily, Mia was a peaceful soul who shunned confrontation. She’d moved to Observatory, where her kookiness was appreciated.
Vee plucked a wad from the post box, not bothering to look them over. Bills and takeaway menus, it only ever was. Through force of habit, she scanned the dark street as she closed the gate after her. A fat-cat vehicle, luxurious in shine, hulked a tad too close to her driveway. Must be her neighbour’s, the one constantly into new toys; she’d have a word with him about boundaries tomorrow.
Vee dumped her handbag and laptop on the kitchen counter and, without switching on any of the lights, opened the fridge. Milk. Mineral water. Leftover fragments of fish gravy, jollof rice and boiled sweet potatoes. Bread and Windhoek lager. Fresh salad ingredients. Vee scratched her nose and popped the freezer compartment. Free-range chicken and prime beef cuts. She closed the fridge. Bottle of wine on the kitchen counter. She paused, and then sniffed. Asian food. No dog.
‘You want another beer?’ she called out.
‘Nah, I’m good, just opened this one,’ a male voice called back.
She grabbed the wine and headed for the lounge, still not flipping any switches. Criminals were best confronted in the dark.
‘Didn’t I warn you to stop breaking into my house? Don’t you see how creepy this has got?’
Joshua waved. ‘I took your concerns under advisement. See, I opened the curtains. So it wouldn’t be, like, evil villain skulking in the dark when you walked in.’ Light from the streetlamps filtered through the windows. The onyx-black, ice-blue-eyed husky near Joshua’s feet didn’t budge, simply swished his tail in welcome. Treachery and deceit in her own home. Males always stuck together.
‘Come on, you’re glad I dropped by. Besides, breaking and entering’s a skill I learnt from the best.’ Joshua tipped his beer at her in salute. ‘Like all skills, if you don’t use it, you lose it. Hungry? Dig in, please.’
Vee made a grateful sound through a mouthful of Thai noodles. It was very good. Too good to be a cheap takeaway. Wiser not to ask.
‘I don’t taste any meat in this.’ She stirred the veggie-laden mix with the chopsticks. ‘There’s no meat? It’s meat-free?’
‘That’s mine. Yours is in the microwave.’
Vee got up, zapped the carton of pad thai and sat back down. Blowing on it to cool it, she said, ‘Throwing money around doesn’t impress me, negro. For your information, I don’t keep bread in the fridge. Or buy pinot noir. And free-range chicken? What’s wrong with normal chicken?’
‘That’s an excellent pinot from a grateful client, you refugee. Don’t refrigerate it. And learn to buy better food for the sake of your health.’ He looked severe as she rolled her eyes. ‘Remember, you’ve only got one ovary, cripple.’
‘Whatever,’ Vee said. She scarfed noodles down until the snarl of hunger was gone, before slowing to leisurely bites. She looked him over: he hadn’t even gone home first to change out of his bum wear before he’d sneaked in. This was their thing and he’d missed it; she’d missed it, hugely. She stretched her legs until they reached his and tapped her boots against his loafers. A smile darted over his eyes, barely lifting the corners of his mouth. He tapped back. Vee cleared her throat. ‘How’s the girlfriend?’
‘Here we go.’
‘What? You can take a cheap shot at my ovaries, but I can’t ask questions?’
He folded his arms. ‘I don’t have a girlfriend. I’m saving the spot. You know that. So stop asking.’
She rolled her eyes, appalled at the heat tickling her cheeks.
Unsafe ground. Their … whatever this was … was built on it. Grudging respect, liberal scoops of abuse, a tacit flicker of something that tiptoed ever closer over the years. Titus had been their referee. Now that he was gone and they were left to their own devices, they found their friendship its own trajectory. Joshua had introduced her to the dark web, a place she never wanted to revisit, and to the underworld of finance, showed her how extortion and tax evasion worked. She had schooled him in shoplifting and housebreaking. He’d explained the nuances of male anatomy, including the precise international units of small, medium and large penis sizes, and given an impressive live demonstration. She’d ignored his women, until he’d passed her the responsibility of dumping the insipid ones by email when he couldn’t be bothered. At her lowest, he’d given her a place to stay, a bank card with no limit and a shoulder. She hadn’t deserved it, was too up her own ass at the time to appreciate it. Yet, and still. Here they were.
He smiled, a real one. ‘We done?’ Banter-wise, he meant.
Vee flexed her neck and put her head back, stress seeping out of her like tiny, invisible insects squirming out of her skin and jumping off her shoulders. She felt better. In less than half an hour, she felt markedly better.
‘Are we ever?’ she answered.
7
‘So, what’s this something you’re working on?’
‘Come on. I can’t talk about my cases. It’s unprofessional.’
He hooted. ‘You work at what’s barely a newspaper, not at the Pentagon. Spit it out.’
She threw a used serviette at his head. Then she told him, omitting the part about apparitions and anxiety attacks. That was all hers for now.
‘This kid’s been missing for two years and you wanna revive the case. And solve it. What’ve you been smoking?’
‘No, the story’s too twisted to walk away from. As dysfunctional goes, this family’s textbook material. The strangest part? Paulsen hates their guts but won’t go as far as outright accusing them – not of murder, at least. She’s pretty torn up, seeing as the better part of this is her fault. As she sees it, between a lot of careless whispers and screwing around she and Ian managed to chakla two families till everlasting. She wants the case closed but not to cause any more pain, which is the dumbest, most passive-aggressive shit I ever heard. Her kid goes AWOL and is most likely dead, and she acts like her biggest decision is whether to flip out on them like an avenging angel or just stay self-righteously pissed in her corner.’
‘Maybe there’s your mystery solved. She did it and can’t come right with herself. Ever watched Snapped: Women Who Kill? Half of those crazies are kid killers.’
‘Nah.’ Joshua cocked his head and Vee did an adamant flip-flop of her hand. ‘I’m telling you, no. I don’t know that she didn’t kill her own daughter but … yeah. I know. If she’s after anything, I’d say it’s money. You know that fancy health-care facility that’s still under renovation, the Wellness Institute?’
Joshua flashed all his teeth. Employees at JPMorgan Chase were bred to run like thoroughbreds, his grin said. Illness was a luxury he couldn’t afford, not on his bonuses.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘some of us are still human enough to get sick once in a while. We can’t all crash-land from Krypton in perfect health and Gucci shirts.’
‘This old thing? Mr Price all the way.’
She shook her head. ‘That glass and chrome building in Claremont. They’re adding a physio unit, mega swimming pool, gym and spa. The works. It’s got everybody lining up.’
‘Since when are you everybody? You’d never see a doctor even if you had an extra pair of eyes. Everything okay?’ He levelled a squint and Vee mumbled something, avoiding his eyes. He shrugged, let it drop. ‘Why in tarnation does a hospital need a pool and spa?’