‘Can we watch a movie?’
‘Something more fun than that. What’s something really, really fun you want to do?’
‘Can we … go to Greenwood Park?’ I asked, knowing that it was probably a stretch. To my surprise, he agreed. The last time I’d been there with Dad was when he took me for my sixth birthday, and it stood out as one of the best birthdays ever.
Greenwood Park was the Disneyland of Harare, complete with trampolines, a small pond you could ride pedal-boats on, and a train that chugged along the perimeter of the park, disappearing into a ‘horror tunnel’ with ghosts and goblins painted on the concrete walls inside.
There was a large group of children, maybe twenty-odd, all wearing cone-shaped party hats, lined up waiting to ride on the chairlift. Dad and I joined the queue behind them. Dad, at six-foot-five, towered over the crowd of people and whistled to the park employee in red who was manning the gate. He came over.
‘Hello, my good man,’ Dad said, extending a hand. ‘I was wondering if you could help me. My daughter is very sick – it takes a lot out of her if she has to stand for long periods of time.’
The man shook Dad’s hand firmly, then shoved his own back into his pocket.
‘Yes, yes, come with me,’ he said, ushering us to the front of the queue.
‘How much did you give him?’ I asked Dad, once we were in the air, floating above the rest of the park.
‘Just five hundred.’
‘I don’t think you should cut in front of people like that.’ I always hated the girls who pushed in front of me to be the first into lunch so they could sit with their friends, relegating me to a table in the corner where I wasn’t able to sit next to Diana.
‘Hannah, how much do you think that guy was making? Enough to live in a nice house? Enough to feed his family?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, for him, that’s a lot of money. Probably a whole day of work. He would be thrilled with that.’
‘I guess.’
‘Do you think I shouldn’t have given him any money?’ Dad asked, as we rounded the corner that took us above the ghost train.
‘No … no, I don’t think that.’
‘Alright then.’
We continued silently chugging along as I stared at all the ant-like people below our feet. I tried to think of a conversation starter that wouldn’t agitate my dad or relate to where Mum and I were currently living.
‘Mum showed me a picture of you with a moustache,’ I said.
‘She did?’
‘Said you were Tom someone.’
‘She was showing you photos of me?’ he asked.
‘Yep. Of your wedding.’
‘See, your mummy loves me, deep down. No matter what she says about me or any lies she might tell. She loves me.’
I hated the way he’d sometimes revert to calling my mum ‘Mummy’, even though I never called her that anymore. I figured it was because when they were together I was just a baby and she would’ve called herself ‘Mummy’ back then.
‘Well, I love you, Dad.’
‘Love you too, Hannah-Banana,’ Dad said, and put an arm over my shoulders. ‘So, Borrowdale Brooke … did Mummy say why she wanted to move there?’
‘Um, after the robbery … She said it would be safer.’
Dad looked up to the sky, pursing his lips as he always did when he was thinking. ‘Did she say why she didn’t want you to tell me?’
‘No.’
‘Hmm. Okay. Well, listen, Hannah. You shouldn’t ever keep a secret that makes you feel uncomfortable, okay? Honesty is always the best policy. Just remember that. There must have been a part of you that wanted to tell me, wasn’t there?’
I said yes, but I wasn’t sure if that was entirely true. When we reached the end of the chairlift, the man let us go a second time around. This time we stopped talking about the move to the estate and instead Dad told me about all the amazing theme parks in South Africa, ones that he had been to as a child, and hoped to take me to one day.
‘They’re bigger than this, much bigger. And they have proper rollercoasters. Sun City has these great big waterslides and a huge pool. There’ll be more kids your age there too. What do you say, maybe for your birthday in Feb we can go down south? How does that sound?’
‘That sounds awesome!’
39
I had such a fun time at Greenwood Park that I completely forgot I told Dad the thing that I wasn’t meant to tell him, until the next day when we were waiting for Mum to pick me up.
The bell for the electric gate sounded, and I pressed the button to let her in. As Chitty pulled into the driveway, I collected my duffel bag and started to walk towards the door. These days, my parents tended to avoid coming into contact with one another wherever possible. But this time I noticed Dad was following behind me.
‘Hey, sweetie,’ Mum said, pulling her sunglasses off and letting them fall down to her chest, getting caught by the beaded chain.
‘Hi, Jane,’ Dad said.
‘Hi, Steve,’ Mum greeted him guardedly, getting out of the car and placing a hand on my shoulder. ‘Did you two have a good weekend?’
‘We did. Didn’t we, Hannah?’ Dad looked over at me, and I nodded an affirmative. ‘How was your weekend, Jane? Get up to any mischief?’
‘I’ve been working,’ Mum replied.
‘Over Christmas?’
‘Never stops.’
‘Wow, you busy bee. Always moving about, aren’t you?’ Dad mimed the actions of a bee with his index finger darting through the air.
‘Alright, Hannah, give your dad a hug goodbye,’ Mum instructed, and I obliged.
‘Why don’t you come in for a cup of tea? Maria just put the kettle on,’ Dad said, a smile playing on his lips. ‘Besides, you did come to collect her fifteen minutes early.’
‘No, thank you, Steve. Hannah and I need to head home now. The holiday traffic is going to be a nightmare.’
‘Borrowdale Road in particular. Nightmare.’
‘Um … Yes, I guess so.’ Dad and Mum looked at each other for a couple of moments before Mum broke the silence again. ‘Alright, bye now.’
‘Goodbye, Jane. Bye, Hannah. Have a safe journey. Take care.’
‘Bye, Dad!’
I jumped into the passenger seat, and we headed out of the gates. I swivelled around to see Dad waving behind us in the driveway. I waved, then turned back around.
‘Do we need to pick up stuff for dinner?’ I asked, glancing over at Mum, but she didn’t respond. She was staring at Dad in the rear-view mirror.
Around six p.m., just after Mum and I had returned with groceries and Gogo had started peeling potatoes in the sink, we heard a knock at the front door. Mum asked Gogo if she was expecting a visit from anyone. She wasn’t.
The three of us peered through a slit between the living-room curtains to see the front of the house. Two policemen stood on our porch, their knocking turning to pounding.
‘Do you think they are actually police?’ Mum asked Gogo.
‘They have a car,’ Gogo said, gesturing with her head to a white sedan with a blue-and-yellow stripe parked on the street.
‘Okay, I’ll go outside and see what they want.’
Gogo and I continued watching the men from the safety of the curtains as Mum answered the door. One policeman was young and fresh-faced, surely no older than nineteen; the other was a good two decades older.
‘Are you Mrs Jane Clarke?’ I heard the younger man ask.
‘Jane Reynolds, I’m Ms Reynolds,’ Mum replied.
‘You are Mr Clarke’s wife?’ the other man asked.
‘Ex-wife,’ she corrected.
‘We need you to come with us.’
‘What for?’ she asked, and I saw her take a step back. ‘I’m not going anywhere. What’s this about?’
‘Ma’am, please do not be difficult.’
‘Like you are with your husband,’ the older man added.
‘Excuse me?’ Mum said, raising her voice. I could see she was starting to irritate the officers.
‘We are going to take you to Chikurubi.’
Upon hearing this, Gogo moved from the window and walked to the front door while I followed behind.
‘Chii chiri kuitika?’ Gogo asked the men.
‘Murume wake ati tiuye pano, haana kuremekedza murume.’
‘Murume wake akaipa. Musamutore,’ Gogo said.
She continued speaking in Shona, but the men refused to reply to her. The only words I understood were those at the beginning of both their sentences: her husband.
‘I don’t know what’s going on here, but I need to call my lawyer,’ Mum said, as she turned her back on the men and started walking inside.
Within a split-second, her arms were firmly gripped by one of the officers and she was placed in handcuffs. And in that moment, I was taken back to Fleetwood Road, to our old home, to the men who grabbed our arms and pulled us down the corridor, who tried to lock us in the linen cupboard, before threatening to kill us all if the police were called. I wasn’t able to say anything then, but I could now.
‘Wait,’ I said, addressing the younger man, who seemed to be the nicer of the two. ‘Please, please don’t take her. Please.’
The men started walking to their car, pushing my mother in front of them.
‘MUM!’ I screamed. ‘M-U-U-U-U-M!’ My heart was beating fast and I had a strong urge to run and wrap my arms around her, cling to her, force the men to prise me off. But I was paralysed.
‘I love you, Hannah,’ Mum called behind her. ‘I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Don’t you worry. Listen to Gogo and do what she says, okay? I love you.’
Gogo ushered me inside the house.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked her. ‘Where’s Chikurubi and why are they taking her there?’
Gogo pulled me towards the table just outside the kitchen where the phone sat, tucked between the two mallards Nana left behind.
‘Call up Stella,’ she told me.
‘Stella? What … why?’
‘Hannah, you need someone to take care of you until your mum comes back.’
‘How long will she be gone? She said just a couple of hours … Do you think she’ll be gone all night?’
‘I do not know, Hannah. I do not know. You need to go stay with an adult – with a friend of your mum’s, okay?’
‘But I can just stay with you, can’t I? I don’t want to go anywhere, I want to stay here.’
Gogo looked deflated and as if she couldn’t bear to stand any longer; she pulled one of the dining-room chairs across the room next to me and the phone and sat down.
Gogo spoke to me slowly, like she did when teaching me Shona. ‘You cannot stay in this house by yourself, all alone.’
She was right. I didn’t want to stay alone in the house without Mum. Sometimes the fridge made noises in the night and I’d get scared and need to have her tell me that it was, in fact, just the gurgling of the ice box.
‘But you can stay here with me,’ I suggested. ‘You can sleep in Mum’s bed – she won’t care.’
Gogo shook her head as though I’d suggested she sleep on a bed of nails and not a king-size mattress with a down duvet.
‘Or I can sleep in the kaya, I don’t mind. Please, Gogo,’ I pleaded, but she wouldn’t listen.
‘Well, I’ll call my dad then,’ I said, reaching for the phone.
‘Wait,’ Gogo stopped me. She clasped her hands together and was rubbing her thumbs against each other with such force the friction might’ve started a fire in the palm of her hand. ‘Wait. Do not call your dad yet. But you should call up Stella.’
I dialled Stella and John’s number, remembering exactly where I would find it in the address book, searching my mind for a way to explain the situation as the phone started ringing at the other end.
‘My mum has been taken by the police,’ I blurted out, when I heard the click of someone picking up. ‘I don’t know why. They just came and took her. Gogo said I should call you.’ I looked over at Gogo, to convey the blame I placed on her.
When Stella arrived, Gogo met her by the car and they exchanged a few words before she came inside and instructed me to pick out a change of clothing and some books.
‘Do you have any favourite toys?’ Stella asked.
‘Toys are for babies,’ I snapped.
‘Okay,’ she said in a voice so soft it was almost a whisper. ‘Is there anything you would like to bring with you?’
‘I don’t need to bring things with me because I’m not going,’ I declared, not fully realising what I had said until it came out of my mouth.
‘Hannah …’
‘No. I’m not going anywhere until someone tells me what is going on. Where is my mum? Where is Chikurubi?’
Stella’s eyes were cast downwards, unable to meet mine. ‘It’s a … it’s a prison.’
‘Is this something to do with my dad?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘How long do you think she’ll be gone?’
‘I really don’t know, hon.’
I didn’t know how to process the answers to my questions. I felt as if I was underwater and someone was shouting at me to get out, but I couldn’t really hear them, their voice warped and distant.
‘Can Oscar Wilde come with me?’ I asked.
Stella said that he could, if it would make me feel better.
I packed my things into the duffel bag I used to take clothes to Dad’s, which Stella loaded into the boot of her car. Meanwhile Oscar Wilde jumped into the back seat.
‘Wait,’ I said. I returned to the house, went down the corridor, into the master bedroom and opened the wardrobe to look for Mum’s HIFA shirt. It was slightly baggy on her, so it was extra-big on me, but I pulled it over the dress I was wearing and headed back out the door.
I used to love it when Stella and John were my babysitters, and I’d be looked after at their home. I was able to watch whatever I wanted; the television was permanently stuck on Cartoon Network unless it was six-thirty and EastEnders was on. In which case, Stella and I would sit in front of the television together. She would pour us both a glass of lemonade, and we would eat beer nuts and Korn Kurls during her favourite show.
But this visit wasn’t like the previous ones. I didn’t care for cartoons or Korn Kurls. Being plonked in front of the television wasn’t going to distract me from what was going on. I tried my best to find out, but neither John nor Stella would give me a straight answer.
‘How long do you think Mum will be away?’ I asked again during dinner.
‘I … I don’t know,’ Stella said. ‘But you need to be strong for her now.’
I felt upset. I was upset that I didn’t understand what was going on, and I was upset that I was constantly told to be strong: by Stella, by Mum, by Mr Wallace.
After I finished eating, Stella led me to the TV room and said I could watch whatever I wanted. Deflated, I flicked on the television and settled in to watch an episode of Scooby Doo, for old times’ sake. Oscar Wilde came to sit at my feet, and so I rubbed his bulky head and stroked his velvety ears, not caring that a puddle of drool was accumulating on my knee.
After about an hour of staring at the screen, my eyes became weary and I started to wonder why Stella hadn’t come to tell me to get ready for bed. I peeled myself off the couch and followed the hushed tones down the corridor to the kitchen, where Stella and John still sat. I stood beyond the doorway, just out of sight.
‘… Controlling? Controlling doesn’t begin to cover it. He’s abusive,’ Stella was saying.
‘I wouldn’t go that far, Stella. He’s just a bit … los
t.’
‘Oh, well, in that case, I hope you don’t get lost and throw me in prison on a whim.’
‘You know that’s not want I meant. I’ve just … I’ve known Steve for years. He was always good to us. Remember, he loaned us all that money when Homelux went under?’
‘Which you paid back, with interest. John … I know you’re smarter than this.’
I tiptoed upstairs and put myself to bed, not wanting to hear any more of the conversation.
The next morning Stella woke me up and said she had made soldiers with eggs. I sat with my elbows on the kitchen table, fiddling with the slices of toast. I had stopped feeling upset and now I was scared.
‘Is there any blood?’ Stella asked. This was a line she’d used when I was a kid and I’d lost my favourite toy or when I accidentally knocked over a jug of water at the dinner table and all the adults were looking at me.
It was meant to snap me out of my despondence – if there was no blood, there was no reason to cry or worry. But the sight of my mother being taken away, with her hands behind her back, was worse than falling off the avocado tree and I would have given anything for a dozen bleeding sores than the pain I currently felt.
After breakfast Stella received a collect call and soon we were driving to Rotten Row, to pick up Mum from the Harare Magistrates Court. When I saw her walk outside, cradling her shoes in her arms, her eyelids heavy from lack of sleep, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief and love for her.
Mum explained that she had been held on charges of child endangerment. She’d been taken to Chikurubi and housed there overnight until she and a group of other prisoners – some of whom had been waiting for months – were bussed to the courthouse for their hearings.
She retrieved her watch from a zip-lock bag and wrapped it around her wrist.
‘I had a pair of earrings too … But that’s okay.’
From what she could gather, Dad must’ve bribed the two arresting officers, or knew them in some way, because when she stood before the magistrate, the charge was immediately recognised as bogus and thrown out.
I asked Mum why Dad would do such a thing; why he was punishing me.
‘This isn’t about you, Hannah. It’s about me. He wants to hurt me.’
Little Stones Page 21