by Jenny Robson
I said, “See, Ma. See what Dorcas did? She let her daughter bath right there in our bathroom. With our bubble bath.”
But all Ma said back was, “Don’t make trouble with the maid, Dirkie. Don’t cause problems. Please!”
And that wasn’t fair, was it? Me being blamed as if I was the one that did wrong? I carried the ribbon through the kitchen. Dorcas saw it from where she was mixing breadcrumbs into the frikkadel mince. She smirked at me like she’d heard exactly what my ma said.
I took the ribbon outside to where Janie sat on the maid’s room steps and I dropped it there in front of her. Right into the sand. She looked at me, but there was no expression under her high eyebrows. It was like she was watching cars pass or flies buzz. Just her finger moved, twirling her hair round and round.
*
Bethany’s fridge is always stashed full. Sausage rolls and ham slices and chicken drumsticks and beef kebabs, all in their tidy made-to-fit containers. I put a lamb-curry pie into her microwave while I ate a peach and dried my hair with my free hand.
In the lounge, they were still arguing. I heard the word “explosives” quite a lot. Bethany yelled for me to come through.
She had gone to squeeze in right next to this new André on the sofa. She had her hand on his leg.
“So what do you reckon, Karel?” she asked. “Wouldn’t you like to go and put a bomb under Kagiso Holdings and, like, blow the place to smithereens? That would make them sit up and pay attention!”
My mouth was full of pie so I couldn’t answer.
“Come on, Karel! You are always whining on about how unfair things are. This is your chance to, like, get your own back. Get those playing fields a bit even. What’s the point bitching on and on if you won’t take action? André can set you up. He knows all about manufacturing. He has all the contacts.” She leaned closer to him so that her long hair was lying along his arm.
Rudi was sitting on the other side of the room, on a fluffy carpet. He kept muttering about getting arrested and put in jail and about the terrible things that could happen to a white boy in the cells. And Kyle was nodding.
“Shut up, Rudi,” Bethany told him. “Stop being a bloody coward. It’s about time they realise we’re serious. That we’re sick of being treated like we’re irrelevant. Like we don’t matter. While they swan about with their Rolex watches and ten bodyguards. And upmarket homes in upmarket suburbs.”
*
I asked Bethany once, “Are we supposed to call all black people Double As? What about someone like Aggies?” I asked just after Aggies told me the story about his three little girls: Thandeka and Gugu and Everbeloved. With Rosie helping him. She was nearly sober that night because we didn’t get much money at the intersection.
I mean, how can Aggies be called the same as those guys with their Rolexes and Mercedes Benzes and bodyguards? It doesn’t make sense, does it?
6
Thandeka and Gugu and Everbeloved
“So, Bethany? Must I really call Aggies a Double A?”
We were in the maid’s room. Bethany wanted to see where I was staying now. So we sat together on the turquoise mink blanket Aggies had given me, kissing and stuff, with the door tightly closed. Even though there was no key to lock it.
Bethany pulled away. “Karel, you are so thick! So naïve! You have to, like, see the bigger picture. This isn’t about individuals, it’s about a whole system. It’s tilted against us. One homeless black hobo doesn’t change the facts.”
Just then, Mrs Mogwera’s sisters arrived in the yard. They were talking loudly in their language, and laughing. I could hear the white plastic chairs scraping as they dragged them into the sun.
“Dear God! What a racket!” Bethany said. “Well, that’s ruined the mood. Passion-killer de luxe! How can you stand living here? It’s disgusting.”
*
Thandeka and Gugu and Everbeloved: those were Aggies’ little girls’ names. He used to live with them in a shack in some informal settlement out near Germiston. The mother was gone, run off with a taxi driver or a policeman. Aggies wasn’t quite sure. And he didn’t tell me his wife’s name either.
“But the house, it was nice, Dirkie. I made it nice inside for my children. Flowers even. Purple silk flowers and pink ones there on the table,” Aggies said. But then he had to stop talking. He was weeping too much again. So Rosie went on with the story about his little girls.
“Ja, so it was April already and mos getting cold. Nearly winter,” Rosie said. “And Aggies was working nights at some factory. Which factory? No, I can’t remember. But he had to wash down the floors, you know? With a power hose. And the girls were complaining they were cold. The mother took their only one thick, big blanket to that other man. Can you imagine, mos? A mother that will take her own children’s blanket?”
I nodded. It was good to see Rosie sober. Our small fire was burning brightly there in our corner of Northfields Play Park. In the distance, on the other side of the trees, we could hear a family and their dogs running around, the children laughing. And there was no wind even though it was evening.
“But you see, it was going to be alright mos. Aggies had this new mink blanket ordered there in the China shop. Just like your one. It was on lay-by and it was nearly all paid up. Just thirty rand more and then he could take it home for the girls. Thirty rand, Aggies? Ja?”
Aggies nodded and gave a sob like he was choking. “Ja, thirty. And it was orange and yellow. With flowers everywhere, both sides. Like a big garden in sunshine. And the money, it was in my pocket. But I got the gumboots.”
From what I understood, Aggies decided he must buy the gumboots first. He was worried about his feet getting so wet night after night when he hosed down the floors. And what if his wet feet made him sick? Then how would he get money to feed his daughters and pay school fees for the eldest one?
“April eighteen. That was the date. Yes. I put on my gumboots sitting there on the bed with Thandeka and Gugu and Everbeloved already lying down. Everbeloved was nearly sleeping. I can remember that smell of the boots and the sound they were making if I walked.”
Aggies hugged his little girls goodbye. But Thandeka said she was cold. And he felt so bad and so guilty about his new boots. So in the end he lit the paraffin heater for them. But he warned them over and over, “You must not touch the heater. You must not turn it higher. And Everbeloved must be far away. She is too young; she doesn’t understand about fire.”
He checked and he double-checked that there was nothing hanging close to the flames. Not the tablecloth. Not their towel. Then he closed the door and headed out into the night towards the factory floors that needed washing. With his gumboots squeaking. Worrying all the way about his little girls alone in the shack with the paraffin heater.
See? That’s why I said to Bethany: how can you call someone like Aggies a Double A? How can he be a Double A and I am supposed to be a Zed when he has less chance and less fairness and justice even than me? Way less.
But Bethany just looked at me like I was stupid. She can be mean like that sometimes and make you feel worthless. Like some ant on the ground.
*
She definitely didn’t remember my birthday today. I could see that. There was no special present for me there at the cottage at Der Hoogte. No cellphone.
I sat in the lounge finishing my pie while André went on about making bombs, using long science names as if he said them every day. And Rudi went on about jail like he got arrested once a week. And Bethany kept saying, “Where are the heroes? We call ourselves Valhalla, but I’m not noticing any, like, brave men around here.”
I was mocking myself, mocking my idea about kissing Bethany all the way down her passage and into her bedroom. That wasn’t going to happen, was it? Not the way she had her arm around André’s big thigh muscle. My birthday was turning into one long, never-ending disappointment. Why did I even expect it would be different from other days?
“Right, I’m out of here,” I said. “I have
to be somewhere else. I have an appointment.” And it was true. I needed to get to the Honeyridge intersection to meet up with Aggies. At least he would notice I was there.
Only Dominic bothered to say goodbye. And only because he had to move so I could get out of the sliding door.
But there in the rose garden, Mr Lawrence was waiting for me with the sun shining through his thin grey hair. And his grey eyebrows pulled down in a heavy frown.
He called out over the roses, “Karel, I have a job for you. I really need your help, son.”
A job? Yeah, that’s exactly what he said.
I could feel my whole chest getting bigger, filling up with hope like a balloon. Like my birthday was going to turn into a good day at last. I was already thinking: a job, well, I will need my tie then! And how am I going to get the blood stains out? Maybe Mrs Mogwera will know how to clean it properly?
The smell of the roses hit me as I walked along the winding path towards Bethany’s father. I held myself tall, like I could manage any challenge he organised.
“I hope you don’t mind me asking, Karel. But I am at my wit’s end,” Mr Lawrence said.
I answered, “No sir. I am ready and able and willing. That’s for sure.”
Would he tell me right up front how much my salary would be? Or would I have to ask him? Was it right to ask about your salary before you got told what the job was? Would it be enough money for me to get a little flat somewhere? Even though I would miss seeing Mrs Mogwera every day. But I could still go and visit, couldn’t I?
And Kagiso Holdings could take their stupid Youth Training Scheme and shove it. Along with their interview that turned out not to be an interview at all. Along with their stupid test questions, trying to trip you up and make you look like an idiot. Especially question five.
*
Even Janie September at the desk next to me was having trouble with question five. She didn’t seem to have a clue. She tapped the end of her pen against the desktop. She shook her head and I could see she was reading the question over again.
Meanwhile Mr Nkum-whatever was down the other end of the conference room with his big hand on some Double A’s shoulder, bending over him. Who knows: maybe he was even whispering the answer?
Beside me, this Janie September began to twirl her hair round and round her finger. Round and round and round. And that was the moment when I finally knew where I’d seen her before. Of course! She was Dorcas’s daughter!
That was a good moment for me, let me tell you! Because I realised at last: it wasn’t cheating for me to copy her answers. Hell no! I had every right in the world to take her answers as my own. Hell yes! It was only fair. Total justice.
So now I just sat waiting patiently until she figured out question five. She did at last, with a small click of her tongue, like she was annoyed at herself.
Forty-seven years old, she wrote on her dotted line. So that’s what I wrote on my dotted line too. Without feeling guilty or ashamed. Not one little bit.
And if Mr Nkum-whatever had given me the chance, I could have explained everything. All about Dorcas and the frikkadel mix and the brown bag.
Except he didn’t give me the chance.
One minute he was bending over some Double A like he was the guy’s new best friend or his father or something, the next minute he was dragging me out of my chair by my shirt collar like a dog.
*
But who cares about Mr Nkum-whatever anyway? Mr Lawrence had a job lined up for me, even if he was taking a while to tell me what it was. Or how much it would pay. Maybe all Bethany’s talk about being a hero had made him feel ashamed?
“So, Karel, how do you feel about skydiving?”
Skydiving?
“How would you feel about trying to persuade Bethany to take a skydiving course with you? I would foot the bill, naturally, for both of you. But I just thought it might provide a good outlet for her. You know what a risk-taker she is, always pushing the envelope. It might give her something more acceptable to focus on, if you see what I’m driving at?”
Skydiving? What kind of a proper job was that?
I mumbled that I was sorry. I mumbled that I was a bit busy. I mumbled goodbye and headed for the remote-control gates. Samuel, the chief Double-A gardener, let me out. Then he carefully closed the gates again and double-checked they were locked before he turned away from me. With Mr Lawrence’s fancy company logo spread across his back in the afternoon sun.
*
I suppose if I think about it, I can sort of understand. Mr Lawrence is worried about Bethany. About her motorbike gang. And maybe he’s right to worry since right then they were inside that cottage talking about bombs and explosives.
And he feels guilty about her too. I suppose like Aggies feels towards his little daughters.
“Hah!” Bethany often laughs. “He is on this, like, constant guilt trip about me. ’Cause my mother ran off and left us when I was four. She said he was a workaholic and she’d had enough.”
I know Mr Lawrence loves Bethany very much. You can see it in his eyes. He’ll do anything to help her and protect her. I understand that.
But I wasn’t thinking anything like that when I crossed the road outside the gates. I stood there at the top of the Der Hoogte cliff. All I could think was how angry I was. With Mr Lawrence. With myself even more.
Why had I just mumbled pathetically like some kid? Why hadn’t I had told Mr Lawrence what I really thought about his stupid offer?
I should have said, “Don’t mess me around, Mr Lawrence! I need a decent job with a decent salary. Full time. I’m not on the market for babysitting your mad daughter. Hell no! If you aren’t going to treat me seriously, then just leave me the hell alone.”
That’s how I should have spoken to him, I was thinking. But no, instead I’d looked down at my feet at the line of ants making their way across the rose-garden path. Was that how a man behaved when he was insulted?
I tell you, I was so angry that I felt like chucking myself down that cliff. And ripping my skin against the jagged rocks all the way down. And smashing my head open on the tar road between the taxis at the bottom.
I get angry like that sometimes. I think it’s in my genes, from my dad. He didn’t get angry often, but when he did it was like a storm crashing in the house. Like that time with the blue-in-the-face man speaking on TV. Dad was yelling back at him like any minute he would put both his fists right through the TV screen. Ma even came out of the bedroom, holding her golden gown closed at her throat and with her eyes wide and frightened.
So then Dad calmed down and said he was sorry he’d upset her. And then he said maybe we should just do what the blue-in-the-face man suggested and leave South Africa. Maybe there is no place for us here any more. Why be somewhere where we aren’t wanted?
I suppose he was thinking about all the jobs he’d applied for and didn’t get.
But Ma had just said, “You’re crazy!”
*
But Aggies, now: he doesn’t seem to have any anger inside him. Even after such a terrible tragedy happened to him.
It was a shack neighbour who came running all the way to the factory, screaming. Aggies had to turn off the power hose to hear her. “There is a fire! In your house! Your little girls, we cannot reach them. The flames are too strong.”
He started running, with the power hose shuddering on the floor like a dying snake. His gumboots slowed him down so he pulled them off and hurled them into the veld.
Later, he stood barefoot beside the smoking twisted metal sheets that used to be his walls. Women stood around him, wailing and weeping for the little girls who were lost.
“God’s little angels,” they told him.
“So beautiful. So clever at school, the eldest one,” they comforted him.
Let me tell you: I got angry for him! There on my bench with the water fountain making soft water noises and Rosie fast asleep now, even though she had not had much wine. I took off the mink blanket that he had stolen for m
e that morning. How could I enjoy being warm under it, after such a terrible story?
I folded it up on the bench. “It’s your boss’s fault,” I said. “How stupid is that, giving you a job washing floors and not giving you boots to keep your feet dry?”
I said, “And it is your wife’s fault. Why did she take the blanket? She should have told her boyfriend to buy her one. And those Chinese shopkeepers. Why didn’t they just let you have the blanket? What’s thirty rand to them? They are all rich anyway. They saw how cold it was. And you had already paid them so much.”
But Aggies just shook his head with tears still rolling down his cheeks. His eyes were shadowy red and shiny in the light of the fire. But not even the tiniest feeling of anger came from him.
Then he came to my bench and unfolded the turquoise mink blanket with its dolphins and its ship sailing to the palm-tree island. And he laid it over me. He said, “It makes me feel better if you are warm. It’s from the same China shop.”
7
Fat Sonya and Fatter Koos
Fat Sonya went wild when Dad told her we were emigrating. The speaker phone was on so I heard everything. She called Dad a coward and a Rainbow Chicken-runner and a rat deserting the ship.
“How can you deprive Dirk of his birthright? Of his inheritance? This is our country too. He’s a child of Africa. How can you take him away from his roots? Away from the sunshine to a bunch of islands where it rains all the time. And the people are all boring as hell, from what I hear.”
Dad got cross. He said it didn’t rain so much in New Zealand, not like in the UK. Then he started shouting back at her about the boxes.
“That Gerrit still hasn’t come to collect them. You tell Koos. They’re still cluttering up the place and getting in the way.”
That was just a few weeks before my twelfth birthday. And then just a few weeks after my birthday, that’s when we went to the Camerons at number 12. To watch The Lord of the Rings DVD. But no one was really taking much notice of the TV except Ma. And me, a bit.
Dad was going on to Mr Cameron about the blue-in-the-face man. Meanwhile Mr Cameron’s wife sat in an armchair in one corner, tearing tissues into small pieces that fell all over her skirt.