by H. J Golakai
‘Rich pipo problems, right,’ Vee replied.
They leaned their shoulders into the wood and the door groaned open. An array of objects fell out, clattering onto the floor.
Vee picked one up. ‘I think I know where we are. This is some kinda tool shed. See, this is a rake, and some iron rods for Lord knows what, and … wait a minute, this must be a drill–’
‘Yay!’
‘You need a plug to operate a drill. Definitely no power outlets in here.’
‘What kind of tool shed is this? Why doesn’t it have a tractor or something, so we can crank it up and mow down the door?’
‘It’s not a shed in a Steven Seagal movie, that’s why. But I’ve got an idea.’ Vee gripped one of the iron rods in her fist, weighing its heft.
They went around the floor space one more time, both clutching a metal rod and tapping it against the walls. Chlöe held up her hand when she heard a change in timbre that indicated glass. She drove her rod up until the sound of cracking turned into shattering. They held their breath, waiting for the door to burst open. Nothing. They switched out the rods for the longest and sharpest of the tools, ripped away enough plastic to make a sizeable hole and poked out the rest of the juts of the glass studding the rim of the frame. Wind and rain whipped into the shed. Chlöe whispered ‘window’ like a wanderer who’d stumbled on buried treasure.
‘I think I know where we are.’
‘You said that already. In a tool shed.’
‘No, where the shed itself is,’ Vee said. She couldn’t see much through the tiny window, but there was enough light now to inspect their prison. Her best guess had been a storage container or empty garage on the Fourie property, but that couldn’t be. This gear was way too boutique for a family garden shed, plus smuggling two hooded women, in two separate trips, into a backyard in a suburb was too risky.
‘These are construction materials. That’s what this shed is for. It’s reinforced with plastic so the tools don’t get rusty. We’re still at the WI, at the construction site at the back!’
Chlöe looked sceptical. ‘Rosie could’ve taken us anywhere else, where no one would ever think to look, and she chose here? Screw it. I’m done asking questions.’ She scraped glass away with her foot and pushed her skirt up her thighs. ‘The quicker we get out of here, the better.’
They piled every solid, non-sliding object from the cupboard as close to the window as possible. Thigh muscles shaking as she tried to keep her balance, Vee climbed on top of the junk heap and hoisted Chlöe up. It made sense that the smaller and shorter ought to go first. It was also pretty clear that should their captor return and catch one of them, it definitely shouldn’t be Bishop.
Chlöe shot through the window like a human projectile. Vee winced, listening to the thumps and splashes coming from the other side. She waited out the thuds and spray of cursing that followed. Rain pattered into her eyes through the busted window. ‘You okay? Sorry, I think I pushed too hard,’ she said.
‘I’m okay,’ answered Chlöe’s voice, strangled with pain. ‘Landed on my hands. I think something’s broken. Jissis, that hurt!’
‘Sorry, babe, but we can’t stand around making chitchat. Can you see anything?’
Vee heard her footsteps squishing through mud as they moved away. Seconds passed. The footsteps came squishing back.
‘You’re right, we’re still at the WI. Not sure where. I think it’s at the back, where they’re building the sports and gym section. There’s a tennis court further down and that ugly, big-ass hole they’re turning into a pool.’
‘Find your way back to the main building. Get to a phone, a security guard, the first person you see. Just get help. Don’t stop–’
‘Wait, I’m coming around to let you out first.’
‘Chlöe, just go, don’t–!’
Too late, Vee heard her take off. She held her breath, prayed and waited. The storm and reinforced walls of the shed dulled every sound coming from the outside. Two full minutes ticked by. Her heart sank. The shed was the size of a doghouse; it was thirty seconds max for a blind man on crutches to go around it at full speed. She swallowed and found her mouth was dry.
*
Seven minutes.
Still nothing.
Seven and a half.
Vee looked up at the window, wondering whether to damn it all to hell and follow anyway. She was taller than Rosie. Not by a helluva lot, but yes, taller. True, for a teenage kid Rosie was built like a prize steed, but Vee could put up a decent fight. It was that or sit tight and wait, and inertia was not her friend right now. Anything could be happening to that little numbskull. Terror tightened a noose around her heart at the thought. Anything could be happening to Chlöe …
She scrambled atop the heap. Her fingers froze on the sill. A scream carried on the wind. The metal catch on the main door ground as it drew back. Vee jumped and almost lost her footing when the door flew open.
Serena pushed in first, carrying a huge flashlight. In its glow, her face looked terrified yet eerily calm. Chlöe stumbled in after her, her hair wound up in the fist of Rosie, who brought up the rear. Rosie shoved Chlöe into the middle of the room, twisting her ponytail so hard she screamed and staggered to her knees.
‘Rosie, stop that,’ Serena hissed, sounding like a mother chastising an errant child for smearing her best dress with ice cream. ‘Could you come down from there, please?’ she called up to Vee.
Vee realised her mouth was hanging open and quickly snapped it shut. The fact that Rosie was behind this was taking an appreciable amount of cerebral gymnastics, but she hadn’t expected to see Serena here. Vee felt like an idiot the second the thought crossed her mind. Of course Serena would see to cleaning up her sister’s mess; she’d probably been doing it their entire lives. Vee felt doubly stupid for not seeing it earlier. Rosemary Fourie was an unmitigated mess, fifteen years in the making. And unlike Lucas, the most innocuous of them all, Rosie was a powder keg begging to be lit. Little Rosie the overgrown baby, tamped down and boxed in, mollycoddled and insulated by everyone around her. Vee remembered the blaze of rage Rosie had unleashed in the street the first time they met and, looking into her eyes now, it was obvious the kid was a breath away from tipping into the void.
‘Serena …’ Vee began, and stopped. Serena what? How could you do this? Why help your crazy little sister? How could you let it go this far? What choice had Serena had?
‘You have one more year before you graduate. You can still have a bright future,’ Vee told her quietly, which was all she could think of. ‘This isn’t going to fix anything.’
Serena agreed with a distracted nod. ‘I know what I have,’ she said flatly. She looked and sounded exactly like her mother in that moment – dutifully proud in her defeat.
‘Let Chlöe go. This is way out of hand as it is, and she’s nothing but a clueless brat that follows me around. She’s not a part of this …’ Vee spoke fast, ignoring the incredulous whimper that rose from where Chlöe lay on the ground. ‘The three of us can talk, but if anything happens to her … if any white people get hurt, everything gets so much worse. You know how this works.’ The sound from the floor changed to something suspiciously like muffled laughter.
‘Nobody goes anywhere, so shut up!’ Rosie’s breath was a blast of sour air. Watching the dance and twitch of individual muscles in her face, lit by the glow of the flashlight, was almost mesmerising. ‘She stays, you stay, shut up!’
Serena pulled her shaking sister to heel and drew an arm around her. ‘Ro, please, please, sweetie … she has a point …’ Her tone was so measured and reasonable that, if not for the quavering, Vee would fully believe her capable of headshrinking all of them out of their debacle.
‘Noooo …’
‘Sweetie, calm down and listen to me–’
A copper-tipped missile streaked through the narrow doorway and out into the night before it dawned on anyone that Chlöe was making a run for it. Rosie roared, elbowing and squirming out of h
er sister’s grip to pursue her. Serena and Vee leapt to restrain her, wrapping their arms and legs around her body. The sheer force of her struggles nearly brought the three of them crashing to the floor.
‘For Chrissake, will you stop it … Rosie, listen, just – ow, shit! Stop it or I’ll klap you!’
It was like trying to restrain a bronco. Serena wrapped her arms in a vice around Rosie’s torso, linking her hands to close the hold. Vee held onto her legs. They bucked and keened in time with her struggles until slowly the fight in her died down. Rosie began to sob.
‘They ruined everything,’ she quailed. ‘They screwed it up, I screwed it up. Why does this keep happening?’
‘Bad things happen, Ro. It was an accident. This was all an accident. No one blames you,’ murmured Serena. On the floor, Vee writhed into a better position to catch Serena’s eye (no one blames you?!) but Serena kept her gaze resolutely turned away. Vee understood – this was her baby sister, she had to say something.
‘The police should be here any minute. We heard them coming on the road,’ Serena said, stroking her sister’s hair. ‘We’ll wait here with you.’
A shriek tore out of Rosie’s throat, so loud and visceral it sounded like she’d torn a vocal cord. She unfurled like an explosive blossom, her shoe kicking Vee in the neck and elbow knocking Serena down flat onto her backside. Before they could recover and make a grab for her clothes, she shook the two of them off and lunged through the door.
Vee gulped in shock and swallowed a mouthful of icy rain as she hit the outside. It took a few seconds – too long – for her vision to adjust to the darkness. She caught movement up ahead and ran towards it, in the direction of the streetlamps and unfinished sports centre. She nearly crashed into the wire fence that ringed the unfinished pool before she realised it was there, skidded and grabbed on to steady herself. Panting, she looked around again. Serena ran up behind her.
Things happened like a series of shots fired.
A streak blurred past the corner of Vee’s eye off to her far right. It coalesced into Chlöe, who zipped right into the mesh, dropped to her knees in the mud, and squirmed through a fresh opening in the fence. Chewing up her trail like a creature possessed was Rosie. Chlöe pulled her foot through to the other side just as Rosie rammed into the mesh, scrabbling for her legs through the hole. Rosie wriggled through the gap after her. Chlöe sprinted, screaming, pellets of rain bouncing off her face. Her boots skidded on the smooth, wet cement near the lip of the pool and her heels crunched as she braked. Her arms pinwheeled as she fought to keep her balance. Rosie charged again. Chlöe swayed and fell backwards, landing on the right side of the world. The rocket of dark that was Rosie flew past her, her look of rage crumbling into one of shock and terror as gravity pulled her into the unfinished pool.
The splash was louder than the thunder. They all stood slack-jawed, watching Rosie dip below the surface and bob up again, her mouth filling with brown water each time she surfaced. Trembling, Chlöe looked over the expanse of the crater and through the fencing at Vee. Vee, breathless and blank, looked to Serena. Serena wrapped her arms around herself, opened her mouth and released a wail of anguish, heaving under the force of her sobs.
They stared back and forth at each other for what felt like eternity, their eyes communicating the worst: none of them knew how to swim.
Somewhere in the background, police sirens struck up a tardy redemption song.
41
‘You got any idea how ridiculous two black people in a pool look? You know how the joke goes.’
‘Not so crazy when one of them used to be a lifeguard. Who cares anyway? There’s not a soul here to see us.’
‘I bet you love that.’
Laughter. ‘Yeah, I do actually.’ Titus paddled up behind Vee and gently spanned her waist. The heating hadn’t kicked in yet, so his hands felt warm compared to the tepid water. They always stayed warm, no matter how long they stayed in. He pressed close and ran his cheek past hers to her neck. Vee shivered and pressed her back to his chest.
‘I’m never going to learn anything like this. You go round molesting all your students like this?’
‘Only the very, very special ones.’ His palms came to rest at the small of her back. Slowly, he began to guide her body forwards. ‘Before you learn to swim, you gotta learn to float. Once you can stay afloat, you can start to move through the water. Remember what I showed you last time?’
The floor started to disappear from underfoot.
‘Titus …’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t get your hair wet.’
‘It’s not my hair I’m wo– whoo! Aaay mah pipo, don’t let me drown. Don’t let this crazy man kill me today.’
‘Don’t worry, I got you. Now move your legs. Slooowly, don’t thrash. Make circles, and concentrate on keeping the circles in one direction. Good, that’s great. Now use your arms … get your arms and legs to move together. I’m just gonna back off a little bit now. I’m not leaving you …’
He let go. She didn’t sink.
‘Ha! I’m doing it! I can do it, I can swim!’
Titus chuckled. ‘Yeah, you can swim. You’re a natural.’
Voinjama circled around a small area, paddling her limbs like a joyful frog. Swimming was easy. Why had she been scared? ‘When will you show me how to save somebody from drowning?’
‘Let’s get you from one end of the pool to the other without dying. Then we can talk about saving other people’s lives.’
42
Vee dived into the pool. The tide of brown water closed its hands over her head.
She blinked into the murk. She couldn’t see shit. She stretched her toes out, reaching for solid ground. There was nothing; she was too far out. The dimensions of the pool came screaming to the front of her mind, and she fought a burst of panic. Her arms arced through the water in a basic stroke, and her heart dub-dubbed in triumph as her body moved forward in response. She took a few more strokes, coasted, lost her air and pushed to the surface.
Spluttering, she looked around until she glimpsed Rosie, thrashing up a vortex of panic. Vee doggy-paddled nearer, gulping down huge breaths and bracing for the worst the closer she got. Rosie’s hand smacked her all over the face, desperate for a hold on anything that would keep her from sinking, and finally latched onto her shirt.
Always remember: a drowning person is desperate. They can’t swim, but survival instinct means they’ll try, even if it means wasting all their energy and oxygen.
Rosie whinnied, her eyes darkening with terror. Her kicks and struggles got feebler as she clung to Vee, her weight an incredible drag with each passing second. Vee gulped some more, ballooning her lungs and forcing herself to relax and resist fighting back as Rosie wrapped both arms around her, pulling them both under.
That also makes them dangerous. By the time you make it to them, they’re practically worn out. When they grab on to you, don’t fight. You’ll both drown. It’s tough, but just go down with them.
They sank.
Lumps of dark matter floated past. Vee hastily squeezed her eyes shut, sparing herself the trauma of watching her last moments go by in what was essentially effluent.
Hold your breath for as long as you can. When you feel the person go limp, grab on tight and swim to the surface.
Pulling Rosie was like hauling a small barge to shore with one finger. Vee’s burning lungs nearly ruptured in gratitude when she hit the surface. She paddled and breaststroked the best she could with one arm. Within a couple of feet of the rim Chlöe and Serena splashed in, grabbed them and dragged, the four of them trundling towards the edge like an unsteady raft.
‘I don’t know CPR!’ Serena screeched.
Rosie saved them the trouble, vomiting on the concrete. Drained, sodden and panting, they huddled near the edge of the crater, listening to the sound of a siren in the distance. Vee didn’t want to think about which of them would eventually have to hobble to the front entrance to bring in the cavalry, but she ha
d a feeling she already knew the answer. She rolled onto her back and stretched out her legs, catching her breath first.
‘It’s stopped raining,’ Chlöe observed softly, looking up at the sky in wonder.
‘Yeah, it has.’ Wheezing, Serena followed her gaze. ‘Fucking Cape Town.’
43
A procession of warm bodies tiptoed in and out of the private room on the recovery ward. A junior doctor flexed Vee’s arm and clucked her tongue in reproach. A male nurse asked her a string of incomprehensible questions in Xhosa as he hung a drip next to the bed. A confused octogenarian wandered into the room and managed to pee on the floor before two orderlies steered him away. Vee could barely keep her lids open long enough to register most of it. She crashed once her head hit the pillow, slept for ten straight hours and woke the following day in time for the lunch rounds with arid nostrils and a raging bladder.
Her first visitor was Bronwyn Abrams. Afternoon visiting hours hadn’t quite begun but she’d been waiting for over an hour, so the nurses took pity and let her through. Bronwyn’s soft, quiet eyes were rimmed crimson from crying, her face drawn and puffy. The toddler she had in tow bounced around the room, entertaining himself with a toy airplane while she talked. Bronwyn gripped Vee’s hand as she sat next to the bed, breaking into a fresh bout of blubbering every time she went over another emotional part of the story she’d already spent the morning telling the police.
‘I feel so guilty. I didn’t know,’ she sniffled, fresh tears running down her face. ‘I swear, if I’d known it was important I would’ve gone to the police two years ago. I wish I could take it all back.’
Vee patted her hand. ‘What’s done is done. At least now you know what your friendship meant to her.’
Chlöe poked her head in as Bronwyn was on her way out. Vee watched them whisper in the doorway before Bronwyn scooped up her son and gave her a grave nod goodbye.