The Lazarus Effect

by H. J Golakai

  Rosie’s eyes flicked back and forth. Her face folded into childlike confusion and she shot up and stumbled past the other quizzical shoppers. The security guard grabbed her, shoved her against a wall and started to pat her down.

  Vee jostled the nearest rack of clothes and the metal rail of print dresses toppled onto a pile of boxes. Everyone turned.

  At last, Rosie seized the day. She drove her elbow into the guard’s stomach and sprinted. Vee ghosted in the commotion and slipped out too, before the doors were barricaded, stopping long enough to stretch over the parcel counter and snatch Rosie’s schoolbag while the attendant wasn’t looking.

  ‘Hey, whoa! Wait up, let me talk to you.’

  Out of breath, Rosie turned around and nearly tripped over her feet trying to run faster. ‘I told you to piss off! Don’t you get it? I’m not talking to you!’

  ‘Hey, hang on, look … Rosie, all I want … hey, will you just slow the hell down for one second?’ Vee stopped, and took off running again when the security guard from the shop poked his head through the entrance. She grabbed Rosie’s arm and hauled her around the nearest corner. ‘Jesus. All I need–’

  ‘I DO NOT HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY TO YOU,’ Rosie spat. ‘So fuck off!’

  Vee plucked her cell out of her pocket. ‘Cool. If that’s your stance, watch this.’ The muscles in Rosie’s face did a comic plunge as she watched the video.

  ‘Aaaand … there.’ Vee hit pause and held the Nokia right under Rosie’s nose, making sure she got a good look at herself, limbs flailing in a mad dash for the door, sleeve stuffed with stolen goods. ‘That’s definitely you. Is it enough to press charges? Who knows? The shop owners might be forgiving. But I know it’s enough to convince your parents that their daughter gets up to no good after school instead of going straight home like she’s supposed to.’

  A whimper trickled out of Rosie.

  ‘Oh, and …’ Vee held up the satchel. ‘Yours, I believe? Now we can have a civil conversation, or we can make this bigger than it needs to be. What d’you say? It won’t take long.’

  ‘I have to get home.’

  ‘All right, then. I’ll give you a ride back to Pinelands.’

  Rosie nailed her eyes out of the passenger window as Vee drove, determined not to make eye contact or speak.

  She’d allowed herself to be led down the street like Marie Antoinette on her way to the guillotine. Vee undid the central locking and pulled her side open. Rosie didn’t budge.

  ‘What?’ Vee said. Rosie looked stricken, as if she was about to be sick. ‘Look, I know you know the drill about stranger danger and whatnot, and I should know better than to offer lifts to a minor. But hand to God,’ Vee raised her right, ‘I have no intention–’

  ‘Is this your car?’ Rosie squeaked.

  Vee threw up a shrug, kicked a tyre. ‘Yeah. My A to B. Nothing fancy like you’re used to but it’ll get you home.’ Rosie’s expression didn’t change and Vee sighed. ‘If you’d rather …’

  ‘It’s nothing. I … it reminds me of a model someone I knew used to have. I never liked it.’ Rosie flicked the door open like the handle had teeth, scoured the interior, exhaled and climbed inside.

  Now, they worked the highway in silence. Vee felt sorry for the kid – her heart was practically thumping through her blouse like a cartoon. Rosie looked the part of a fighter but wouldn’t say boo to a mouse. Vee decided to go easy on her. Thieving kids were right up her alley, seeing as she used to be one. She’d had flair and lightness of touch to spare, though, laughably lacking in Rosie’s case. A girl her size trying to be deft and inconspicuous at anything was a joke.

  ‘You did all right back there,’ she lied, easing conversation open. ‘You went wrong trying to take too much. Always gets you noticed.’

  Silence.

  ‘D’you do this a lot? How many stores do you hit in a week?’

  Money shot. Rosie whipped around, mouth twitching. ‘No, I don’t ‘do this a lot’, okay? I’m not some fucking thief or something.’

  Of course not. You just steal, which is totally different. ‘Hey, I’m not judging you. For real. And I told you already, don’t worry about me telling your parents about any of this. I was only bluffing to get you to open up.’

  ‘Yeah, right. And if I don’t?’

  ‘I know strong-arming you won’t work, Rosemary. But help me out here, for your sister’s sake. This story could go a long way to improving how missing persons cases are handled. It would mean a lot to families like yours, who’ve lost someone. Don’t you care about that?’ Vee stopped. Preaching froze people up.

  ‘I do care. Why wouldn’t I?’ Rosie said, barely audible. Head bowed, she looked like she did care, deeply, but couldn’t summon the muster to do anything about it.

  Vee let her marinate. It would take or it wouldn’t. She could afford to be a little patient.

  ‘She taught me how to,’ Rosie mumbled at last.

  ‘Hhhmm?’

  ‘Jacqui. She showed me how to shoplift. That’s how we used to spend time together sometimes, after school or on the weekends.’

  ‘Okay.’ Vee straightened behind the wheel. ‘How did it start?’

  ‘The way things always started with Jacqui. We got bored one afternoon and starting messing around to kill time. One of us walked out of a supermarket with a chocolate we hadn’t paid for, and it turned into a thing. We started getting better at it, practising only in small, stupid places, like the one we were just in. They don’t have cameras or sensors at the doors, or real security or anything. If there was a guard, Jacqui would flirt with him while I took something, but usually she did the lifting ’cause I wasn’t that good at it. I get confused if people look at me, start worrying that they know and it throws me off. We got caught a coupla times, but Jacqui was a sweet-talker. Or she’d pay guys off to not call the cops.’

  ‘Your parents never found out?’

  Rosie shook her head. ‘Don’t think so. We only did it sometimes, when it was just the two of us. Lucas and Serena would never go along with it. And anyway, we stopped after a while … least I did. The smaller shops got too easy and Jacqui said the security was way too good in the malls for us to try it there. You ask me, she got bored with it. She got bored with things easily. People, too.’

  Rosie released a huge breath and settled more comfortably into the seat, unburdened.

  ‘Y’all didn’t need the stuff, or money to buy it. It was for fun.’

  ‘Why not? Jacqui got off on thrills. She’d be into something crazy for a while and then just get over it. My sister Serena says she had a deficit disorder on top of her daddy issues, like, she really needed to be the centre of attention so Dad could always be focused on her. Which is nuts, ’cause Dad only pays attention to old, rich guys with dodgy hearts.’

  ‘And what do you think?’

  ‘She was cool and fun and she paid attention to me, which no one else ever did. I think the real reason Serena got all churchy and dragged Jacqui along was because she got jealous we were spending so much time together and leaving her out of everything.’ Rosie crossed her arms and made a click in her throat. ‘Like if they were hanging out together, Jacqui would have less time for me.’

  ‘So if Serena brought Jacqui into the born-again circle, why was she still bunking school and stealing?’ And buying condoms to wear out with her gangster boyfriend. Church had really worked its magic. ‘According to Ms Paulsen, Jacqui changed a lot once she got the spirit. You saying it was all an act? Why’d she go that far to lie to her mother?’

  ‘No, man!’ Rosie rolled her eyes like she was talking to the biggest dunce on the planet. ‘Jacqui really was saved … well, kinda. She used to be full of it but that was all before, when we first met her. And the only reason we found out she existed was because the Sean thing happened … don’t know if you know about that part …’ Her voice caught. Her eyes strayed out of the window again.

  Vee nodded. Act One of the Fourie tragedy had largely played out befo
re a child too young to comprehend much, but Vee assumed Rosie was every bit as affected. Pain and sorrow tended to die hard in families, petrifying into bitter, heritable legacies instead. Rosie likely knew Sean the legend better than the fles-hand-blood brother, but it was clear she cherished him nonetheless.

  ‘Do you remember him at all?’ Vee asked gently. She had experience with lost brothers, too.

  Rosie pulled a contemptuous face. ‘Ja, of course! I was eight when he died.’ She worked her lips around like her words made her mouth sour, as if she had better practice keeping her memories of Sean in than running her mouth. ‘He was sick most of the time, though. I can hardly remember him not being sick, and doing normal stuff with us.’ She slammed a knuckle to her lips and attacked her nails. ‘It drove Mum crazy,’ she whispered.

  Vee changed tack. ‘Go back to how you kids got to know each other.’

  ‘After the secret of Jacqui being our sister came out, she started coming around to hang out more. Not right away, but gradually, until we got used to her. Mum hated it, but whatever, Dad said it was okay. Jacqui took her time getting close to us, like she needed to make up her mind if any of us could replace Sean. She loved him best of all, even though they knew each other for five minutes, but that was our parents’ fault. Her mum included. The three of them lied to all of us. So anyway, Lucas was her first pick, but, Lucas being Lucas, that didn’t last. Then Serena–’

  ‘Wait. What’s ‘Lucas being Lucas’ mean?’ This was the second time someone had skirted around Jacqui’s weird relationship with her half-brother.

  Rosie looked pained and embarrassed. ‘Look, Miss Johnson, I don’t wanna say something I’m not supposed to. I’m not even meant to be talking to you. All I mean is my brother’s a little strange. He gets … intense. People can take it the wrong way.’

  ‘Intense how, Rosemary? Spell it out for me.’

  ‘Long as you know I’m not saying my brother’s crazy, or anything else to incriminate him in whatever happened to Jacqui!’ Colour exploded on Rosie’s cheeks and forehead, emphasising an unflattering smattering of acne.

  Vee took a deep breath, mentally cursing television crime shows. ‘I’m not a cop, remember? I just need you to clear up a few things so I’ve got a clear picture.’

  Rosie fidgeted. ‘Lucas can’t play it cool when he cares for someone, especially female someones. He tends to form unhealthy emotional attachments to the women in his life, especially the role models that are important in his development as a man. Some can go on for quite a while; others he just abandons when he finds another target to obsess over.’

  Vee bit the inside of her cheek to hold in a spray of laughter. Oblivious, Rosie banged on with her recital: ‘I think Lucas has Freudian issues, but I’m not sure which ones. But it always centres around women; he’s very scared and docile around male authority. He’s kind of confrontational with other men, like with Dad, but it’s usually hot air, and he ends up backing down. I imagine the seat of all that misplaced emotion is Mum. Because it starts with mothers in most cases. I mean, even the way he looks at her. It’s the way you look at a mother, but like … not really, at the same time.’

  Vee cleared her throat. ‘That’s really something, Rosie, it truly is. Tell me, did any of you kids ever go for therapy? You know what therapy is?’

  ‘Duh. I’m not stupid.’ Rosie crossed her arms, pouting. ‘Yeah, we went. It was useless, but we had to.’ She shook her head, looking adult for the first time. ‘Grief counselling and some kinda child therapy, and my parents did marriage counselling one time. That didn’t last.’ She snorted. ‘Now they take each other down in the open and everyone gets pissed off at everyone else for no reason. That’s our new therapy.’ She looked Vee up and down with a frown. ‘Why d’you ask? I read a lot about this stuff too. Does it show?’

  ‘Nope. Never mind. Tell me more about Lucas and Jacqui. What happened?’

  Rosie fired a round of shifty looks, slunk deeper into her seat, opened her mouth, closed it. The sight of the conifer-lined streets of Pinelands brought her agitation back in full swing. Her legs started to bop up and down in anticipation of escape.

  ‘You better tell me, ‘cause it makes a big difference if this comes from you. I’m gonna find out anyway, and if I have to hear it off your parents, hehn! You know how that’ll go,’ Vee said. ‘They’ll paint themselves like heroes and dump all the mess on you kids, mainly because they have no idea what this has been like for y’all. Girl, you do not want to hear what you sound like coming out of your parents’ mouths.’

  Rosie chewed her lip, stalling. Vee considered central-locking all the doors and forcing her to live off potpourri until she got an answer.

  ‘I’ll tell you if you stop here,’ Rosie said as they veered off Forest Drive deeper into suburbia. ‘Don’t take me all the way home. I can walk.’

  ‘It’s no problem. We’re almost there.’

  ‘No!’

  For the first time, Vee was close enough to notice that Rosie’s hazel eyes, wild and boring into hers, were rimmed and flecked with green. They were undoubtedly her most striking asset, one of few she could take pride in.

  ‘Nobody should see us together. I don’t want any questions.’

  Vee pulled over and drew up the handbrake. She flipped down the sun visor to keep the glare out of her face and shifted around in her seat so Rosie had her full attention.

  ‘Lucas started acting weird around Jacqui.’ Rosie hugged her schoolbag to her chest as if it was all the comfort she had left. ‘He started having feelings for her. Y’know, very non-brotherly feelings.’ She gulped. ‘Everyone thinks I’m too young to notice anything and find out stuff, but I do. Well, I don’t know how far it actually went but I knew something was up. Jacqui went cold and stopped wanting to be around him. I tried to bring it up but she shut me down. But I think they… you know, that, like …’ Her fingers harassed her socks, pulling strips of elastic loose. ‘They maybe did it with each other or something.’

  ‘As in …’

  Rosie’s blush went nuclear. ‘You know. As in, that.’

  14

  ‘Oi! Stop being anti-social over there!’ Charisma shouted.

  Vee flapped a hand over her shoulder to shush her and went back to the view.

  The rooftop of Urban’s office building was her headspace. The CBD was one hell of an impressive spreadsheet; the throb of traffic and a strong south-easterly fluting past her ears made for a brilliant lunchtime soundtrack. Throw in the phallic magnificence of the Absa building towering over the downtown hustle, and decompression was instant. Vee looked down, fighting that visceral urge to spread her arms and launch herself over the edge.

  ‘Voinjama Johnson!’ a chorus of voices screamed.

  ‘Give me strength and succour.’ Vee covered her face with her hands, breathed, and meandered back to the group. The terrace wasn’t big enough for destressing one person, let alone five. Chari and Chlöe, along with Lebo Khumalo from layout and design and photographer Tallulah MacArthur, and it was a bit much.

  ‘Puff?’

  Vee pushed away the smoking butt in Chari’s hand. ‘No. Jeez.’ Chari held it pinched between her thumb and forefinger, meaning it was no ordinary cigarette. ‘How can you smoke that and be coherent later?’

  ‘One hit is for great creative energy,’ Chari grinned hazily. ‘Well, let’s say two hits …’

  Vee tuned out the volley of office gossip between the four and grabbed a lawn chair. The battered furniture was a gift from Portia, cast-offs from her last redecoration. Portia wasn’t a fan of her staff shooting the breeze up here but didn’t see the point in banning it. Vee faced her chair in the other direction, overlooking the ledge, and let her thoughts sail out.

  They were screwed. Well, she was screwed; Chlöe didn’t matter yet. She wasn’t completely screwed, not yet, but she couldn’t see a way to backpedal out of this. It wasn’t at all like her to lose heart so quickly but she felt exhausted already. Illegitimate thieving daugh
ters, thuggish boyfriends, coital congress between siblings. How did each slippery thread weave together with the others? What was the backbone of her piece, if she couldn’t even see an outline? The police had given up – who the hell did she think she was? Not to mention that sweet incentive of twenty-five grand Adele had pushed at her. A heft of bills she’d held in her hand, seriously debated pocketing – journalists danced over the line all the time, what was twenty-five really, and who would know – until common sense slapped her and she’d refused. Her palm still itched with the memory of it, though. Adele wasn’t quite compos mentis right now, but Vee didn’t intend telling Portia a thing, not even to win a few points for moral fortitude. If Portia found out anyone connected with the case had so much as waved a hundred rand note under her journalist’s nose, that would be it – story axed, welcome to reassignment. All Vee needed to do now–

  Chlöe coughed at her shoulder.

  Vee smiled up at her. ‘Those bitches too over the top? You get used to it. They sound like maniacs but they’re not. Not fully, anyway.’

  ‘Uh, no, it’s not that,’ Chlöe hissed. ‘We’ve got company.’

  ‘Shit, hide the joint!’ Portia never came up here, nor did anyone else. Vee swung her legs down and got up. She blinked. ‘Whuhh … Joshua? What’re you doing here … and what’s that nonsense in your hand? You bought flowers?’

  Joshua thrust out the bunch of poppies. He was back at work; the haircut, clean-shaven face and crisp shirt was all there was to say about that. ‘If Mohammed won’t come to the mountain …’ he shrugged, leaning over to brush a kiss on her cheek.

  ‘This is a cheap and dirty stunt,’ Vee said in his ear. She didn’t have to turn around to know their exchange was being devoured by the intrigued collective: the stares lasering into the back of her neck were evidence enough. ‘You know our rule: no workplace antics, no showing up to offices. You think this is funny?’

  ‘LOL! What care I for rules? You should’ve taken my calls. You know I only play dirty when you don’t take my calls.’ He dropped another kiss near her ear. ‘You smell incredible, by the way.’