by Rosie Rowell
‘What about the radical time you had with Simon?’ I asked drily.
Beth sighed. ‘He thinks I’m a child.’
I smiled into the black. ‘Don’t worry about Simon, he’ll be gone soon.’ Lying next to Beth felt like finding a long-lost treasure. Yet she had been here all along.
‘I don’t want him to go. I want him to stay and you two to be friends, like before.’
‘I don’t think it can be like before, Beth.’ Again I saw Simon staring out to sea.
Across the courtyard the kitchen swing-door clapped again.
‘So, was your week amazing?’ Beth yawned loudly.
I reached my arm behind my head. ‘It was different.’
‘It must be better than Leopold.’
My little sister was changing. Until a week ago, Leopold was the best place on earth. ‘You can’t lie in the middle of the Cape Town Main Street on a Sunday afternoon.’
Beth giggled. ‘Or listen to other people’s conversations on the party line.’ She yawned and then said sleepily, ‘I’m glad you’re back.’
Next to me Beth felt like the most comforting thing in the world. I wanted some of her completeness, her sureness of herself. I remembered the ring I’d bought her in Greenmarket Square. ‘Remind me in the morning, I have something for you.’
There was a low murmur from my parents’ next-door room. Then came a heavy tha-donk and, ‘You bugger!’ as Dad tripped over something in the darkness. A few moments later I heard a clacker-clacker-clacker of the wooden curtain rings as Dad drew one aside.
‘It’s gone,’ we heard him say through the wall, and his words reached the furthest corners of the night.
It was true. The storm had rolled itself up and disappeared; silence settled on the battered night. The howling wind was no match for our squat, square house. The metre-thick walls felt for the first time like a bastion against the outside world.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The shriek, of a kind we had not been expecting for another eleven months, reached us from the depths of the house. Beth and I were in the courtyard, lolling in deckchairs in the dappled afternoon sun. I looked at her. Her head popped up, her eyes swivelled from side to side, like a mongoose. Dad appeared at the door of his study, notebook in hand.
‘What’s happened?’ I asked him.
He glanced back inside. ‘Your mother’s on the phone,’ he said. He blinked in the sunlight. One could almost imagine he was developing a nervous tic.
That morning, at breakfast, he’d paused in the kitchen doorway.
‘You’re up!’
‘Yup.’
‘And eating.’
I nodded as I licked Marmite off my hand.
‘And you’re not going to cry, or shout or throw anything,’ he said, still in the doorway.
I laughed. ‘I promise.’
‘Cause to celebrate!’ He’d clapped his hands.
But once again he could smell trouble. We all could.
Mum appeared now, in a state of wild excitement. ‘Bibi is here!’ She held out her arms, like Father Basil proclaiming the good news on Easter Sunday. ‘Not here, obviously, but in Cape Town. She’s coming to see us tomorrow!’
‘Bibi?’ asked Beth.
Mum laughed. ‘You know, my crazy friend from uni.’
‘Don’t be funny, Ma, you don’t have friends,’ said Beth.
‘Is that necessary, Beth?’ Mum frowned at her, then turned to Dad. ‘Isn’t it exciting!’ She clapped her hands.
On hearing that name, my fragile equilibrium shattered. That woman, who was responsible for planting all the AIDS education ideas in Mum’s head, who had the most stupid name in the whole world, was coming to stay in my house. That interfering no-gooder, perpetrator of untold misery. Imagine if Juffrou du Plessis got wind of this! It was like housing a terrorist.
‘Bibi is the one who wrote the article,’ I said to Beth.
‘Which article?’
I stared at her. One day she was going to have to leave her parallel universe, where everyone loved each other and nothing bad happened.
‘THE article,’ I said, rolling my eyes.
‘Why is she here?’ asked Dad, stepping down into the courtyard. He placed a restraining hand on the top of my head.
‘She is on her way to Natal, to cover the pre-election violence around Richmond.’
‘Poor her,’ said Dad.
We giggled.
‘Why?’ asked Mum.
‘Why?’ laughed Dad, but seeing the look on Mum’s face, stopped. ‘Tough assignment.’
‘If anyone can do it, she can. She has a big job at the BBC. It’s taken her all over the world,’ said Mum.
I bit the inside of my cheek. Who cared about the BBC?
‘And now she gets to see Leopold!’ said Dad.
Beth stood up and clapped her hands. ‘She must do the tour!’
‘She must buy the veldskoens!’ I added, seeing Mum’s face pale.
‘She must drink the tea,’ Dad concluded, nodding gravely.
Mum was not amused. Dad coughed and leaned forward to kiss her. ‘Only teasing, Vivvy. That’s very good news.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s work to be done.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To the town hall! I must inform the mayor at once.’
Marta, caught up in Mum’s excitement, spent the day preparing for Bibi’s arrival as though it were a state visit. She vacuumed and scrubbed and dusted. We were enlisted to polish the silver. I found it offensive to be made to polish silver in honour of a trouble-making community wrecker, but I was not brave enough to bring it up with Marta.
As we sat at the kitchen table, under Marta’s watchful eye, a foreign sound reached us from the sitting room. It was the sound of women laughing.
‘It’s Bibi daahling,’ Beth mimicked, in an accent that was more Dynasty than the Queen.
We dissolved into giggles.
Marta clicked her tongue.
‘So glaaaad to see you, Bibi,’ Beth continued, undeterred. In our new alliance we were unstoppable.
‘It’s char-ming, simply charming,’ I said through splutters of giggles. Beth banged her head on the table by mistake, which had us screaming with laughter.
We didn’t immediately notice the two figures watching. The woman next to Mum was tall and seemed to be constructed out of angles: a big triangular nose, a straight back from which her long thin arms jutted out, hinging awkwardly at the elbows. Her dark curly hair escaped in tufts from an indigo scarf that was tied around her head much in the same way Marta tied her doek. She was so pale that the hair on her arms was startlingly dark against her skin. She wore a khaki sleeveless top and trousers, as though she had arrived back from a day in the bush, and Jesus of Nazareth sandals like Mum’s.
We examined each other across the kitchen. Mum looked different next to Bibi. I thought of the memory matching games we used to play when we were small. It was the first time I saw Mum correctly matched up.
‘Beth, Meg, and Marta our housekeeper,’ Mum introduced us. I turned in time to catch Marta’s raised eyebrow at her new title.
‘We meet at last!’ said Bibi, revealing a mouth of big teeth, ‘Look at you, beavering away!’ She opened her mouth and delivered a loud braying sound. ‘Is the boy, Simon, around? I’ve heard so much about him over the years.’
Mum looked embarrassed. ‘He’s not a boy, Bibi, he’s nineteen!’
‘God, I feel old!’ laughed Bibi. She looked around. ‘But what a wonderful old kitchen, it’s the real thing!’ she exclaimed, as though we were mannequins in a museum display.
‘It’s not true Cape Dutch, but it was the first homestead to be built in the town. Now through here,’ Mum pushed open the swing door to the courtyard, ‘you can see the original stonework … ’
With a backwards smile, and a right-angled wave, Bibi followed Mum out through the swing door into the courtyard.
Beth kicked me under the t
able. ’She doesn’t shave under her arms!’ She pulled a face.
‘And her toes have tufts of dark hair growing on them,’ I said.
‘Why wouldn’t she shave?’ asked Beth. Beth was desperate to start shaving, but Mum was adamant that nice girls only started shaving at the age of fourteen, if at all.
‘It’s because it always rains in England. They need to keep warm.’
The donkey laugh and chitter-chatter continued throughout the afternoon. It made it easy enough to avoid them, but towards evening they cornered Beth and me in front of the TV.
‘Bibi’s brought you presents, from London!’ By the tone of Mum’s voice, it was required of us to sit up and be excited. Beth sat up. She had no willpower.
‘That’s nice,’ I said, not taking my eyes off the TV.
‘Not much – a few things my colleagues tell me are popular with young girls at the moment,’ said Bibi. She produced a Body Shop bag, with the usual lip-gloss and body cream, and some stripy fingerless gloves. ‘I know, wrong time of year!’ she laughed.
There were some luminous plastic bracelets – ‘Fun!’ said Mum, and a teddy bear from Harrods – ‘I’d forgotten you were so big, Beth,’ said Bibi. At the bottom of the bag was a bottle of Vixen nail polish.
‘That’s for you, Meg. All the girls your age are wearing it. It’s brand new this year!’
‘Oh wow!’ said Mum with a laugh. She took the bottle and examined the colour, then handed it to me.
‘It’s not brand new,’ I said, putting it down. ‘It’s been around for at least six months. I already have some,’ I lied.
Beth pinched my thigh.
‘But thanks anyway.’ I delivered my sweetest smile.
Marta had laid the supper table outside. But after a pre-supper glass of wine, Bibi started rubbing her ankles and wound her cardigan around her head to ward off the mosquitoes. As she reached for the insect repellent for the fourth time, Mum stood up and ushered Beth and I to move everything inside.
‘Don’t move on my account. I’ll be fine,’ said Bibi.
‘We almost always eat inside,’ said Mum. ‘I don’t know what Marta was thinking.’
Ten minutes later Dad appeared, looking confused at the change of plan. He placed a roasting tin groaning with meat in the middle of the table and hovered next to Bibi as he ran through the contents of the tin. ‘Ribbetjies,’ he pointed out the lamp rib chops, ‘mutton chops, and some Malmesbury boerewors. It’s a secret recipe.’ He winked at Bibi.
She laughed loudly and said, ‘Yum! I do love red meat!’
Dad beamed.
‘Unfortunately, I’m trying to limit myself to white meat only. So dreadfully dull!’ She produced a packet of what looked like birdseed and sprinkled it on her salad.
Dad handed me the meat, with a look that made me snort with laughter, but a glance from Mum killed it.
‘How do you like our country, Bibi?’ asked Dad.
‘Wonderful. So beautiful. A little bit warmer than I’d imagined,’ she said with a laugh, ‘But at least it’s not humid.’
‘Natal is chronically humid at this time of year,’ I said.
‘Thanks for the warning,’ she smiled.
‘And it’s a malaria area of course,’ I added, hoping I was right.
‘It’s beginning to sound like Heart of Darkness,’ she laughed.
I stared at her.
‘The book,’ she said, glancing from me to Mum, who smiled in a strained way at me.
‘I think Bibi can deal with a few mosquitoes and a little heat after all the places she’s visited,’ she told me.
Bibi laughed. She turned to Dad. ‘Tim, it’s so exciting what Viv has achieved with her AIDS awareness programmes. Now that we have secured funding, we can approach it in a much more organised fashion.’ She stopped for a sip of wine.
My fork jabbed into the roof of my mouth. I blinked away the stabbing pain. I looked at Mum, but she would not meet my eye. I looked at Dad. Bibi was waiting for an answer.
‘Yes, indeed,’ he said. He didn’t look happy, but neither did he look surprised. My fork landed back on my plate. My hands were trembling. I sat back in my chair. Mum had promised not to cause anymore trouble. I’d believed her. All the time she’d been planning more organised, funded trouble! And she had the cheek to rant at the politicians about transparency. Did no one tell the truth anymore?
‘Such an exciting time in your country,’ Bibi’s voice droned on. Would she never shut up?
I looked up and realised she was talking to me. ‘What?’
‘I said it must be very exciting to be your age at this moment in your country.’
‘Why?’
She laughed, baring her oversized teeth. ‘To be a part of the historic changes that are taking place! Isn’t that exciting?’
‘I don’t know.’ I shrugged my shoulders. ‘You’re the expert.’
In a mad confidence I held her gaze until she looked away.
‘There’s only so much you can learn from books and reports,’ she said to Mum.
‘I’ve always thought so,’ I replied, ‘but you wouldn’t know it. Read any British newspaper article and you’d think we’re a bunch of stupid racists, us white South Africans.’
Bibi sat back.
‘Margaret! Enough!’ growled Dad.
‘That’s what it said! What gives you the right, Bibi, to write an article about a community you know nothing of, that you’ve never even been to?’
‘Margaret!’ Dad’s fist landed on the table.
I was not finished. ‘You English think you’re so much better than us, with your grand statements. You don’t understand what you’re writing about. You have no regard for the impact of your throw-away lines.’
‘They do not!’ said Mum.
‘“They”?’ I laughed, swinging around to her. ‘You’ve been here for seventeen years and you still can’t speak the bloody language. You talk about England as home. You’d like to save us, but you stand outside of us. You’re no different to her!’ I jerked my thumb towards Bibi, then got up and left the table.
As I reached the door, Mum stood up. ‘I will not tolerate you speaking to my friend like that. Come back and apologise.’ Her fury sliced open every word.
I turned around.
‘Viv, it’s fine,’ Bibi murmured.
‘It’s not fine,’ said Mum, not taking her eyes off me. She put her hand on the table to stop it shaking.
As I took in a deep breath, a new voice, one that had been sitting at the pit of my stomach for a very long time, answered. ‘No,’ I said quietly.
I held Mum’s gaze a moment longer, in which she appeared to shrink, and wither, like the speeded-up ‘Life of the bean plant’ films at school.
Bibi stayed one day instead of two in the end: she blamed her bosses in England, she blamed the tensions in Natal. Everyone was relieved to see her go. Mum was so angry with me that she could not speak to me. She couldn’t be in the same room. Mum’s anger bubbled and boiled for three days. I felt nothing. She was a liar and a hypocrite.
Marta didn’t see it that way. ‘Respect.’ She poked my shoulder as I sat outside on the stoep. ‘What you lack is respect.’
‘But Marta –’
‘No buts.’ Another stab at my shoulder. ‘No ifs, no buts, no nothing. Finished en klaar[*].’
*. Properly finished
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
It was only when I was halfway across the quad, clutching my brown ‘Paddington Bear’ suitcase that bumped against my knees, that I realised everyone was looking at me. Worse still, they were laughing and pointing.
‘What?’ I demanded, turning around as I scanned the sea of girls. Each time I tried to focus on one of them, their eyes and nose and mouth disappeared. They were featureless apart from a pencilled-in underlined capital T like the characters in my children’s bible. At last I spotted Esna and Elmarie, at the front of a growing crowd. At least their faces didn’t disappear, but they were shaking th
eir heads in disapproval.
‘My dad says it not right to walk around naked,’ Esna said, wagging a finger at me, before they dissolved into giggles.
‘Where’s Xanthe?’ I asked.
‘Who?’
‘Xanthe!’
They conferred in whispers behind their hands. Elmarie shook her heads. ‘We don’t know a Santie, there’s no Santie here.’
No Xanthe! What had they done with her? Then I caught sight of my reflection in the glass door opposite. I was seven again. And I was naked, except for my white ankle socks and Clarks T-bar shoes. Where was my uniform? I’d been dressed a moment ago.
‘I’m sure my clothes are here somewhere!’ I said, sounding like Mum in a crisis. I bent down and flicked open the suitcase. The children had formed a ring around me. Frantically I pulled out one thing after another: my turquoise bikini; an eggshell-encrusted Easter card I’d made for my parents, one where you pulled back the top half of the card flap to reveal a yellow chick; my First Love doll, who had never recovered from a severe haircut; and a diary from when I was thirteen. Then came Simon – I pulled him out by his ear and flung him to the side, where he landed face down on the doll. I had run out of options; there was nothing left. The crowd was closing in. There were faces above me, to the side, stamping feet getting closer. They chanted, ‘Meg has lost her panties! Meg has lost her panties!’ I crouched forward, head tucked into my knees to block out their faces, my arms locked around my legs. Behind them was the sound of Mrs Franklin’s stilettos stalking across the quad; the echo of the spiky heels bounced against the four walls. Everything went quiet. She stood over me, blocking out the sun. When I dared look up she had become the evil old hag in Snow White, with her hideous crooked, warty nose and toothless grin. She stretched out her witch’s hand and extended a gnarled talon. She was going for my eyes.
Uuurghwah! I pushed my way back through the layers of semi-consciousness, and sat upright in bed, breathing in shallow gasps. As I caught the lingering smell of roast chicken from supper, I talked myself back from the dreadful dream. I was awake, school hadn’t yet started. I wasn’t a seven-year-old anymore. I was me.