by Jen Thorpe
Published in 2016 by Penguin Random House South Africa (Pty) Ltd
Company Reg No 1953/000441/07
Estuaries No 4, Oxbow Crescent, Century Avenue, Century City, 7441, South Africa
PO Box 1144, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa
www.penguinbooks.co.za
© 2016 Jennifer Thorpe
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or be stored in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.
First edition, first printing 2016
ISBN 978-1-4859-0340-6 (Print)
ISBN 978-1-4859-0341-3 (ePub)
ISBN 978-1-4859-0342-0 (PDF)
Cover design by publicide
Author photograph by Sarah Gurney
Text design by Fahiema Hallam
Set in Bembo 12/16
To Kath, Liz, Sarah and Vanessa, who keep me sane even when life is peculiar
1
Ruby
Eremiphobia: Fear of being oneself
Ruby liked to watch people, especially when they didn’t know she was looking. She picked up her binoculars and moved towards her window to watch the queue of applicants outside in close detail. She noticed that they looked at one another curiously, as applicants at the Centre for Improved Living often did. Nobody made eye contact. She wasn’t surprised that a study on fears and phobias drew so many nervous-looking people.
The advertisement for this particular study had received more feedback than any study before because somehow, in some papers, it had been posted next to a photograph of a rather sexy woman holding a stethoscope. It wasn’t clear to Ruby how this had happened, and after her initial feeling of mortification, she’d realised this minor error might mean publicity for the Centre. At least people read the damn thing.
Ruby’s office was on the second storey of the Centre. It had large windows on two walls, and the glass doors of the group work room made up the third wall. She loved the space because it was almost always light. Her ferns had died when she’d first moved in, from too much sun, so she’d replaced them with two thick succulents with fuzzy leaves. She rubbed them now, enjoying their texture against her long fingers. She was tempted to purr like a cat and opened her mouth to do so, but thought better of it. The purr remained beneath her tongue like latent energy.
The windows also meant that she had the best view in the building. She got a thrill out of watching people from up there. Looking out the street-side window at the patio on the ground floor, she wondered where Jericho, the local homeless schizophrenic, was this evening.
The handle to the red front door of the Centre had come loose three weeks ago when Jericho’d decided to turn it over and over again. He’d said he was trying to find ‘the right celestial frequency’. Now, when you turned it, it spun round without opening the door. Inevitably, you had to push the buzzer, which rang for far too long before Mel answered it. Mel had her own way of doing things.
Earlier that day Ruby had heard the sound of water trickling just outside the reception area, and had immediately known what it was. Opening the door of the Centre with a firm tug, she’d stepped onto the patio. Jericho was urinating on their wall, singing in a voice like Louis Armstrong’s. He had a good voice, marred only by frequent snorts as he prepared to spit phlegm on the pavement. She walked up to him, noticing the cluster of moles he had on his neck. Three, right in a row like Orion’s Belt. One had a thick curly hair growing out of it.
‘Man, Jericho! I’ve asked you before not to piss on the wall. Dammit. You have the whole street available. Why?’
As she averted her eyes, he shook himself dry and then took a bow.
‘This is the wall that I was drawn to. I think it might be connected to the magnet inside me. A force field of some sort.’
‘Rubbish, man. You don’t have a magnet inside you, so please don’t urinate on my wall.’
She couldn’t stop herself from commenting. Somehow, he always managed to draw her in. Maybe he did have a magnet for trouble.
‘I do! I ate one. Just in case I ever wanted to hold something on me for decoration, like for when I go on a date. Like a fridge magnet or something. These clothes of mine aren’t getting any newer.’
She didn’t know if his name was really Jericho. It was what he had told her that first day, eight years ago, when she had met him, peeing on the same wall. He lived in the area; she wasn’t sure exactly where he slept, but he was at the Centre nearly every day so it couldn’t be too far away.
He walked away singing ‘What a Wonderful World’, and their conversation was over. She picked up the jug they used to wash the wall down after him and went back inside to fill it up.
She looked down at the patio now, wondering whether the applicants could smell the remains of Jericho’s morning ablutions. She hoped not.
There was what Ruby would call a hive of activity outside. She drifted off into her thoughts for a while. ‘Buzz,’ she said out loud, then caught herself. She froze, and for a moment she had the feeling there was somebody in the room with her. The fear of being caught acting like one of the Centre’s patients forced her to turn her head around slowly, fearing the worst. There was nobody. After a deep breath of relief, she gave an extra long ‘Buzzzzzzzzz’ to get it all out, shaking it out with her arms too.
She checked the time on her watch and sighed. The queue wasn’t moving as quickly as she had hoped it would. She looked up the hill and watched the clouds bulge over the peak of the mountain.
In Observatory the streets are varying lengths and connect in a way that doesn’t make sense in terms of town planning. Obs is also in the middle of confused weather systems. The forest, mountain and nearby ocean converge there so that, some days, Ruby could come to work in shorts and need to leave in a winter coat and woollen hat. Obs is gusty, and the gusto of the wind seems to fit the mood of the place.
On Thomas Street, where the Centre was situated, there was an unusual number of trees. In winter the green leaves gave it a soothing feeling, and in summer, when the wind blew the bulk of the leaves away, the street was dappled with silhouettes. Ruby liked how the trees told her when the season was changing. She picked up her binoculars again to look at the queue of people, who were probably going to get wet. The darkening clouds with the sun behind them bleached the area in overexposed light. The weather on the other side of the mountain was far less inclined to be so moody, but it was the turbulence of the dark side of the mountain that Ruby enjoyed the most. Of course, she lived on the sunny side.
The queue should have moved faster because the application form was simple. Mel had printed out plenty of them the first time around but had since done several reprints. Their team hadn’t anticipated just how bad paranoid and fearful people would be at filling in their correct details, or any details at all. One applicant marked the entire form ‘not applicable’. The exception, of course, was those with obsessive-compulsive disorder, who were excellent at making sure their writing looked as close to the form’s font as possible. They needed everything to be clear and aligned.
Ruby scanned to the end of the line, counting how many applicants were still in the queue. They could only accept a maximum of sixteen ‘patients’ for the study, and on her last check downstairs, more than ten times as many people had applied already. Her fingers started to move as though flicking through their application forms. She curled her hands tightly into a ball to try and control them.
In the middle of the queue, Ruby noticed a young Indian woman and adjusted the binoculars until she could see her clearly. Her short black hair was blowing crazily in gusts of wind, and she had earphones in her ears. For her
sake, Ruby hoped the weather would hold off a bit longer. Her takkies and jeans would probably withstand some rain, but her top didn’t look very warm.
Ruby shifted the binoculars and her eyes drifted along the queue to where she noticed an old, white man with a gilded walking stick. He swung it from left to right and looked like the type who would poke people with it. His hair was combed and gelled over the top of his head, its fine strands lifting only occasionally in the strong wind. His face was red from sun or wine, and his expression was grim. His dungarees were as old and faded as he was, and were stretched tight over a substantial boep.
It was beginning to rain. The sky gave in and leaked its first droplets. Ruby watched as people looked up and around to see whether only they were feeling the drops. Those wearing glasses took them off, wiping the speckles from their lenses. She wondered how many people in the queue were afraid of the dark. Would they stick around?
In order to sort through the applicants, Ruby and her colleagues would have to group them. Although it was Ruby’s eighth year of conducting studies at the Centre, she always seemed to leave these kinds of critical decisions to the last moment. Somehow this worked. She got a gut feeling for the people, or how the study might work, and went with it.
The Ministry for Mental Wellbeing was funding this study, and their staff members were sticklers for demographically mixed groups, so the applicants she chose would have to be diverse. Neither she nor the Centre could afford to piss off the Ministry again, given their tempestuous history. If she did, she’d lose her funding, which was fairly slim pickings in the post-recession Third World.
The Indian girl was closer to the front now. Directly behind her was a tall, rugged man. He had thick brown hair and wore a blue flannel shirt. His chinos were mud splattered and he wore trail-running shoes. He looked as though he would be able to grab a fish out of a flowing stream and eat it raw, even if there was a braai area nearby. She really needed to stop watching so much reality TV and get out more, Ruby thought. Participants, good-looking or not, were off limits, but it had been far too long since anything other than Lip Ice had touched her lips.
Her phone rang loudly on her desk, drawing her out of her thoughts and back to the Centre. The light flashed to let her know that it was reception. In her rush to answer, she tripped, landing on her binoculars and left arm. She stood up fast and leapt for the phone.
‘Ruby?’
‘Yup.’ She tried to breathe normally.
‘What was that bang? We heard it downstairs.’
‘Nothing. What’s up?’
After her first week at work she’d ordered an extra-long telephone cord so that she could get things done while on the phone. She didn’t like to be unproductive, and her long phone cable was one of the best decisions she’d made.
‘Well, we’ve had to print more forms again and we’ve run out of paper in reception. I’ve never seen anything like these guys. It’s like they think they’re in a spy movie or something. They keep checking side to side, or making sure I’m not watching them fill in their forms. I mean, do they think we won’t be reading them? Anyway, enough moaning, can I get some more paper from Welly’s office? He’s out and I’ll need your spare key.’
Holding the phone between her shoulder and ear, Ruby turned her succulents so their backs would have some time in the sun the following day.
‘Sure, come up and get it.’
She hung up, double-checking her face in the mirror to see whether she was blushing from her dirty thoughts about campfire sex with the man in the queue. She heard footsteps, and then Mel appeared at the door, grimacing.
‘Shame, Mel, is it that bad?’
‘Jeezlike. I mean, what do they think we’re going to do with their details? Rêrig, dis te veel. They are vreemd, this bunch. Very strange, I tell you.’
‘Do you need me to come down and help you?’
‘Ag, nee, we’re nearly there.’
‘Stick it out, and I’ll be down in a few minutes to help close up.’
‘See you now now.’
Ruby neatened her desk, putting everything in place and organising things just the way they needed to be for the next day. She glanced at the photograph of her family on the window ledge. Her mother was fatter then. She made a note on her Post-it stack to call her the next day. For good measure she drew a smiley face next to it with a very happy smile. Immediately, the urge to scratch her head arose, but she held her fingers tightly.
The photograph couldn’t have been taken more than five years ago, but Ruby realised that her eyes had creased since then. She was thirty-five, but she still tied her brown hair in a loose bun on top of her head as she had at university. She didn’t wear much make-up, to her mother’s despair. The lines that had begun to form in the skin around her neck felt foreign to her, but not as foreign as buying special lotions and potions to remove them or prevent their spread. She was busy enough taking herbal pills to regulate her moods, and vitamins to keep her bones dense. Sometimes she delighted in her ageing body, other times she despaired.
Just to show herself she still had it, whatever it was, she bent down and touched her toes. She swam daily, and stretched in the sauna at the Virgin Active, listening to the gossip of older women. The night before she’d overheard one of them say that putting sesame oil in her vagina could keep it moist for days. Older women knew all the tricks.
She walked towards the window for one last look at the applicants. The road was nearly clear of them. As she prepared to go downstairs, she turned off her office light, taking a moment to enjoy the darkness.
2
Nazma
Hodophobia: Fear of road travel
As she stepped onto the stoep of the Centre, Nazma looked up at the window where the woman with the binoculars had been watching her, or perhaps all of them, all afternoon. Call her paranoid, but that was just weird. The rain that was trapped in her short thick hair was making her feel cold. She hadn’t thought to bring an umbrella, which was a rookie error in the Southern Suburbs, and she began to feel angry with herself for making the mistake. She wasn’t a Durban girl any more. She should have known better. It was her first day off from the station kiosk in ages, and the thought of being around so many people had made her flustered.
Her fear of driving had surprised her as much as it had surprised anyone else. It started when she went for her first lesson and realised she would have to control a solid metal box and not hit anyone with it. She had sat behind the wheel perspiring, her palms becoming slippery. Putting the car into gear after many crunching attempts had been the first hurdle. As soon as she’d got it in gear, she’d stalled, then stalled again, then rolled back. The more she tried and failed, the worse it became. Eventually, with only ten minutes of her lesson left, she’d driven around the block once, stopped at the nearest zebra crossing, opened the door, and dashed out into the traffic. Tony, her driving instructor, had shouted at her to get back in the car, but she’d run across the road on trembling legs without looking back. When she got home, her father was waiting for her. It wasn’t good. His chastisement just made her feel more afraid of failing. And, the next lesson, Tony had been more nervous and sweaty than she was.
A city was best discovered on foot anyway, she thought. Inside the confines of a car the world lacked texture. After what felt like a million more driving lessons, she still hadn’t wanted to do her test. But she’d wanted to want to do it, which was some sort of progress. Her mother had cut the advert for the phobia study out of the Blitz and Sellotaped it to Nazma’s door, the type of subtle hint Abigail excelled at. This was her only option. If she couldn’t drive, she might have to live at home forever – which was enough to scare anyone.
She began to chew her nails. They were painted turquoise, and the colour complemented her skin. The wind played with her hair at the nape of her neck, and she shivered. She should have brought a thicker jersey – her shirt wasn’t keeping her warm at all and she was ‘smuggling Smarties’, as her dad called it.
Just thinking about him saying that made her wish she didn’t have nipples.
Standing in the queue contemplating driving, she started to feel clammy despite the cold. Her palms were sweating, and she felt a twisting in her stomach. She tried to distract herself by watching other people in the line. The old man with the cane had stepped inside already. Half an hour earlier he’d tripped one of the people bringing coffee up the line and pretended it was an accident. The coffee cup had flown into the air, Catherine-wheeling its contents all over the six people in front of him. He’d chuckled under his breath as he’d watched the coffee run down the road. Nazma had since given him as much space as she could without actually leaning on the person behind her.
It was almost time for her to step through the door. She hoped she would be accepted to the study, and, at the same time, that she wouldn’t. If she got in, she would have to drive. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be able to. She didn’t know which was worse, but both ideas created an uncomfortable pressure in her chest.
Breathing slowly and being honest with herself, she felt the pressure lift a little. She wanted to get in. She imagined her future self driving along De Waal Drive, singing along to the music in her car. It would be nearing the end of winter then, and the last of the persistent Cape Town rain would be pelting her windscreen, her wipers pushing it back and forth, making that discomforting repetitive squeak. She saw herself transformed. She would be on her way somewhere, anywhere. She would be moving at last.
Abrupt negative thoughts pierced her happy fantasy. What if her brakes failed? What if the windscreen wipers jammed and her vision became blurred? What if the windows steamed up? How did you get the demister on? The thought of it all made her whole body feel tense and her heart beat fast. Trying to calm herself, she turned on the MP3 player in her jacket. She had kept her earphones in all day to avoid potential conversation with other applicants in case they were crazy, but now she really needed some music. She started to tap her foot to the Fine Young Cannibals.