by Rosie Rowell
Shirley turned and smiled: ‘Thank you, Lizzie,’ and returned to her shrubs.
Every table in the restaurant was occupied by the time we sat down. The atmosphere crackled. People talked and laughed loudly, as though in competition with their next-door neighbours. We sat near the front of the restaurant, overlooking the palm tree-lined beach below. ‘When my mum says “on the beach”, she means a restaurant overlooking the beach,’ Xanthe had explained earlier as she shook the bottle of Vixen nailpolish. ‘Shirley doesn’t do tomato sandwiches.’
I watched the clusters of families with blankets and cooler bags spread on the beach below us.
The waiters wore white vest tops, long blue aprons and jeans. They called each other ‘babe’ and ‘sweetie’. The girl hovering next to Alan had long blonde hair scooped up into a high ponytail. She belonged on Baywatch.
‘Champagne, I think,’ said Alan, after a glance at the wine list.
‘Ooh, yes,’ said Shirley, ‘I do like my bubbles.’ She giggled in my direction. She was wearing a sparkly gold blouse that showed off her deeply tanned cleavage. Her cheeks were flushed.
I giggled too.
‘Here we go,’ said Xanthe.
She had drawn thick black eye liner across each lid. She looked incredible. I stole glances at myself in the mirror across the restaurant. Xanthe had made me wear a green dress she had found at Greenmarket Square. Shirley had done my eyes. ‘Oh my God!’ she’d said. ‘Look at that! Just like Bridget Bardot!’
Alan looked around the table. Shirley was much more twittery around him. When he spoke his words were clipped and quick. ‘Enjoying Cape Town, Meg?’ he said as he passed the menu back to the waitress without looking at her.
‘Yes, thank you very much,’ I said quickly.
‘Loosen up, Dad, you’re scaring her,’ said Xanthe.
‘I’m fine,’ I squeaked.
‘How can you tell your father to loosen up?’ Alan demanded, forgetting about me.
‘You’re killing the vibe,’ said Xanthe.
Alan laughed. Shirley and I joined in after a fraction of a pause.
Our waitress returned with the bottle of champagne. ‘Two glasses?’ she asked Alan.
‘Four,’ said Xanthe.
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Shirley glanced in my direction.
‘It’s New Year, Shirl,’ said Alan, ‘we don’t want to kill the vibe.’
The champagne was dry and bubbly. The champagne Mum and Dad occasionally drank at home was much sweeter. This filled my nostrils and made me want to sneeze.
‘How did you do in the exams?’ Alan returned to me.
‘Alan, please,’ Shirley tutted.
‘Is it you we have to thank for helping Xanthe make such an improvement in science?’ he said with a dismissive pat on Shirley’s arm.
‘Oh no, I had nothing to do with it,’ I said quickly.
Alan sat back in his chair. ‘Did you actually work for these exams?’ he asked Xanthe.
Xanthe smiled.
‘I always knew you were a sciences person.’
‘Blah, blah, blah,’ said Xanthe, grinning. Her eyes flickered up at Alan’s and for a moment I saw the chubby blonde girl in the photographs again.
Alan looked across at his wife. ‘Not like Shirl. Shirl’s more of an arts person.’
‘Nothing wrong with the arts,’ said Shirley.
After supper we drove around the coast to the next bay. Large boulder rocks that lined the shore divided the bay into four small beaches.
‘We’ll see you here, in Fourth Beach car park, not a minute after one o’clock. Fourth Beach, not Second or Third. Do you understand?’ said Shirley.
‘I’m quite sure the whole beach understands you,’ said Alan and Shirley giggled.
‘I’ve got to get my bag out the boot,’ said Xanthe and when Shirley swivelled around, she added, ‘Jerseys and stuff.’
‘Clever girl. There’s always a chilly wind in Cape Town.’
As Alan reversed the car, he shook his head and laughed.
‘What?’ said Shirley. ‘It’s perfectly true.’
The beach was dotted with groups of people come to see in the New Year. Some had lit small bonfires and sat around it. Others sat inside circles of glowing candles in brown paper bags. Several hi-fis competed with each other. A man with blonde dreadlocks and wearing multi-coloured clown trousers sat on an upturned crate strumming ‘Bye-bye Miss American Pie’ on his guitar.
‘Hey, Bruce,’ Xanthe called out as we passed. He looked up and nodded in reply. Halfway down the beach Xanthe plonked down and unpacked the bag. The ‘stuff’ was a six-pack of beers. ‘My dad won’t miss them,’ she said. She pulled out some sachets of clear liquid, bit them open and squirted the contents into each of our open cans. ‘Flavour,’ she grinned. The wolfish look was back.
The ‘flavoured’ beer tasted disgusting – bad enough to spit out. But Xanthe sipped it without making a face, so I did my best to copy her. A boy, not more than Beth’s age, ran in front of us, carrying a bottle half full with bright green liquid. Two other boys ran after him. They tackled him to the ground and the bottle went flying. For a few seconds the three of them looked at the bottle and the green liquid that was seeping into the sand before starting to push and shout at each other.
‘Kids, huh,’ said Xanthe.
I managed to get through the first can of beer and started on the second, which tasted less toxic than the first. The stars wiggled out of their fixed positions. Shouts, singing, laughing and stereos melted into one happy background buzz.
Xanthe looked at her watch. ‘I’m going down the beach to see if I can find some friends. They’re always here at New Year,’ she said.
‘Shall I come?’ I started to get up.
‘No, no, you stay here with the bag and stuff. I won’t be long.’
‘OK.’ I sat back down. The sand felt warm. I took off my shoes and squiggled my toes around in the sand. I could feel each grain of sand separately. I tried to estimate how many grains of sand would be in contact with each foot. I smiled and waved at passers-by. After what seemed like a long time but also none at all, the thought that I needed to find Xanthe popped up with a pinging sound, like a cash register. It was such a surprise to hear the noise that I sat up. I put everything into the bag and stood up. The sand felt very uneven. I dug my toes into the sand to steady myself. A few paces down the beach, after having weaved through and around and over groups of people, I stopped and looked back, in case she might have returned.
An arm hooked around my waist, a mouth clamped down on mine. The lips were hard and rough and chapped.
‘I beg your pardon!’ I said, taking a step back, trying to focus on the person in front of me. He was tall, with crinkly eyes and messy, shoulder-length brown hair.
He started laughing. ‘Sorry, love. Wrong girl.’ He had an English accent. ‘Happy New Year, anyway,’ he said and kissed me again before disappearing into the blur of people.
Someone had built up a bonfire in the middle of the sand and crowds of people sat around it, their faces luminescent in the orange light. Bruce the guitar player sat to the side, playing ‘Sing us a song, you’re the piano man’. He looked up as I passed, and winked at me. I walked on, hoping to bump into that strange boy again.
I found her, on the other side of the beach, where the boulders form a barricade at the edge of the sand. More precisely, I found her shoes. ‘Xanthe!’ I shouted, but the words were caught in my throat. I started running over the resisting sand.
At the shoes I stopped and started turning in a circle, in a panic so thick I could hardly see. Where the hell was she? Water-water-sand-sand-sand-rocks – a movement in the rocks made me stop. I blinked but could see nothing. The boulders ahead leaned over each other to form a hideaway of sorts, a cave. I walked towards the cave, with dreading feet. There again was the flash of movement and a leg – pale, almost luminescent. Had she passed out? How was I going to get her all the way up those steps to the c
ar park?
And then I stopped. A hand appeared on the pale leg – long, dark fingers against the skin.
‘Xanthe!’ I screamed, running, my heart thumping in my ears, throwing myself over the endless sand, diving over the last distance, until I was in front of her. In front of them.
‘Happy New Year, Madge,’ she said. She sat up and tried to yank her dress back down over her tummy as I stared. I could not think. I could not breathe.
‘What’s the time?’ asked Xanthe. In a quick movement she lifted her bum to pull her knickers back up.
I turned away and caught myself staring at Simon’s crotch as he pulled up his trousers. A spasm caught me and I jerked my head back to Xanthe. She had seen that. She had been watching.
‘Come on, then.’ She crawled back out a few paces, stood up and pulled her blue dress down. She picked up her shoes and without a word or even a backwards glance at Simon, started walking back down the beach.
A few steps later I looked back, to make sure it was actually him. He was sitting on the sand, arms slung around his knees. He was looking at me, not at Xanthe, as if he had been waiting for me to look back. I heard his words again, She’s like a dog on heat. I turned away, humiliated.
When I looked back again, Simon was staring out to sea.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Sleep was no refuge. I dreamt that I had drowned. I couldn’t breathe. Something heavy, sticky and salty was wound across my neck and mouth. After a moment of panic I realised that it was my hair. I threw it off but couldn’t stop shaking. I shut my eyes, forcing my breath to deepen until I felt my heart drop back out of my ears. The window above my stretcher bed was open. The breeze was so cold that I knew it must be very early, long before dawn. I was shivering and sick. I staggered into the lit bathroom and shut the door. My pink fingers clutched the white basin. I looked into the mirror, into this new version of me. Shirley’s heavy mascara formed black rings around my bloodshot eyes. I looked ghoulish. I closed my eyes, but that brought back the image of Simon’s crotch. I shuddered and opened them again quickly.
Simon had a birthmark, the colour of wine dregs, behind his right ear. It created the illusion of his right ear being bigger than the left. He used to say that he would know when he found his father as he would have a matching birthmark. The impossibility of this did not bother him.
I touched it once, when I was ten and he was fourteen. We were behind the chicken coop. I wanted to know whether the dark patch felt any different to the rest of him. As I reached out and brushed it with the tips of my fingers, he turned and nudged me backwards, until my head knocked against the white-washed brick wall. Then he pressed his lips against mine and prised open my mouth with his tongue and stuck it inside. That moment marked the end of our friendship. A nail driven into dry wood, splitting it apart. I shoved him backwards and spat, until my mouth was dry. My spit lay between us – dark stains on the dry sand. By the time I looked up he was gone. After that day he’d stayed away from our house. From me.
I switched off the bathroom light. I knelt over the loo and stuck my fingers down my throat but nothing came out.
When I woke again Xanthe’s bed was empty. I stood under the shower with my eyes closed and let the water chip away at my skull and shoulders. Back in her bedroom I sat down at her dressing table. I opened her drawer looking for something to get rid of the black smudges around my eyes. I rummaged through an untidy collection of ear buds, sticks of mascara, lipsticks and moisturising cream until I found some make-up remover. As I was about to close the drawer, I spotted a small cardboard box right at the back. I opened it, expecting a necklace, or a ring, but caught my breath. It was the fossil she had found that day in the mountains. How typical of Xanthe to steal it – after listening and nodding as Dad made his speech about not taking anything away. She took anything she wanted. I traced the spiral shape with my fingers, remembering that day, the heat and dust. I felt homesick and ashamed. Dad had trusted her. I put the box back exactly where I found it. I wrapped the fossil in a pair of knickers and buried it at the bottom of my bag. I would take it back to where it belonged.
Xanthe was downstairs, lying on the sofa in the TV room. She pulled in her legs to make space for me, but I chose an armchair close to the door. I felt woozy, like my balance was gone. Seeing her, stretched out like a lazy cat had brought on the sensation of someone kicking at my brain with steel-capped boots.
I sat back into the chair, out of her grasp. ‘How did Simon know you were at the beach? Did you plan it?’
She shrugged and picked up a Homes & Garden magazine.
‘And by the way, how could you leave me, drunk and all alone? Anything could have happened to me.’
Xanthe dumped the magazine on the table and left the room. I followed her. I knew I was making her angry, but I didn’t care.
‘You owe me an explanation,’ I said in the kitchen.
She opened the fridge door and then stopped. ‘Why?’
‘Because this is not how friends treat each other!’
‘Your problem, Madge, is that you’re living in an Enid Blyton book. Ginger beer?’ She attempted an ironic smile as she held out a cold SodaStream bottle of water to me. When I didn’t respond she shrugged and inserted the bottle into the machine. As I started speaking again she pulled down the lever and pressed the button. The touf-touf-touf drowned out everything I tried to say.
Eventually I gave up and shook her arm.
She shook me off, her hand on the button again.
‘Xanthe!’
‘What?’ She stamped her foot.
‘That’s going to explode if you keep pressing it.’
She flung back the lever. As the bottle slid down the tube a whoosh of fizzy water spilled over her T-shirt and onto the floor.
‘Fuck!’ She banged the empty bottle on the counter and turned on me. ‘You and your crazy little town, you don’t get it. You’re all so fucking weird – you, your family, and fucking Simon!’ As she said his name she screwed up her eyes.
I wasn’t surprised at her calling me or my family weird. That much was a given. What shocked me, tore at me, was the pain on her face as she said Simon’s name.
Xanthe chucked her wet T-shirt in the direction of the back door. She turned to the sink to find a cloth. ‘He helped me study for the science exam.’
‘So? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because you’re so fucking weird about him –’
‘I am not!’
She knelt down to mop up the water on the floor. ‘Ja, right. Anyway, once I got to know him, I realised he’s … unlike anyone I’ve ever met.’
I watched the knobbly line of her spine and ripple of ribs along her pale curved back, as pronounced as an exoskeleton. No one had ever said that about me.
Shirley bustled into the kitchen. ‘Ha-lo-o! You won’t believe the chaos out there. The whole world was trying to get to Woolies this morning. Traffic was a bladdy standstill. And it’s so hot!’ Shirley dumped her shopping bags on the breakfast island and wiped her brow. ‘Huh!’ She looked around. ‘Tea is what I need.’ She flicked the switch on the kettle and turned to Xanthe. ‘Why are you semi-dressed? It’s almost noon! Really and truly!’ She laughed.
I looked at Xanthe. She took a while to respond to Shirley. Without her tough outer layer, she seemed tiny. Simon had done it again. Not satisfied with merely beating me at school and at home, he’d taken Xanthe too.
That evening I stood in the kitchen, spooning Shirley’s curried egg mixture into hard-boiled, halved egg whites. Judy and Stuart were coming for supper. ‘Nothing fancy,’ I had heard Shirley say into the phone after lunch. ‘Whatever I find in the fridge.’ She had been in the kitchen all afternoon.
‘Thank you, sweetie,’ Shirley bustled past me, ‘I’m lost without Lizzie. But she always goes to church on New Year’s Day – one of those eight-hour jobbies.’
It suited me. I’d stayed by the side of the pool all day, avoiding Xanthe and her parents. Everyt
hing was turning out horribly wrong. I was furious with Simon. I could not forget the twist of Xanthe’s mouth as she said his name. I would never forgive him. I was furious with Xanthe, yet without her I wouldn’t be in Cape Town. I would be at home, wishing away my life. More than anything, I was furious with myself.
An hour later Stuart and Judy arrived. Shirley was worried about the table we had set outside. Was it warm enough, was there enough light? She fussed and muttered and bustled about, until the moment she heard the front gate click. In an instant she whipped off her apron and turned around to greet her friends, as serene and composed as Mother Teresa. After a chorus of ‘Happy New Year!’ and ‘Another one gone!’ Judy presented an exquisite lemon meringue pie. The weightless tufts of whipped egg-white were cooked to the palest hint of beige. ‘Oh, it’s nothing.’ She waved it away. Judy’s smile transformed her face. The crow’s feet that fanned out from the far corners of her eyes concertinaed up like a squash-box; her eyes twinkled, her mouth spread surprisingly wide. It made you want to smile back. But it faded quickly. The natural set of her face was pinched and anxious. Mum claimed that by the age of fifty you had the face you deserved. But Judy had probably never seen that look on her face. It seemed unfair for her to unconsciously give away so much about herself.
Judy kissed Xanthe on the cheek. ‘Xanthe my darling! What a lovely surprise! I thought you’d be out jolling. I wish I could have made Karen come. She said she bumped into you at Greenmarket Square! She’s at a party tonight, another party, at Grant McCullam’s house. Tomorrow she’s off to Plett[*]. I swear she treats me like a hotel. Do you know Grant McCullam?’
Xanthe shook her head, admirably disinterested.
‘She runs rings around you,’ Stuart’s gruff voice cut in. Stuart looked like Alan – large, thick-set gingerbread men cut from the same mould – only Stuart had turned out more sloppy: he sagged around the tummy and neck.
‘She does not!’ laughed Judy uneasily.
‘You have no idea who she hangs out with these days,’ said Stuart, talking over his wife.