For the most part he thought she had settled down, but often she was sullen and only spoke to him when he spoke to her first. In this barren new place, they knew no one. They had neighbours but Mary didn’t concern herself with them. He preferred it that way. He didn’t like the idea of his wife gossiping over a fence. Sometimes when he was between jobs he would watch her walking down Saturn Street coming home from work. She walked with her head up high and her eyes straight ahead of her. If it was cold she would have her hands deep in the pockets of her coat. If there were people about, she did not pause or stop and speak to anyone. He could see how the neighbours looked at her as she passed, how they fell silent, their eyes appraising her, and the corners of their mouths turned down. And it was true. Mary was standoffish in nature. He had experienced it the days they first met. Some people might have seen her as a snob, with her light complexion, acting white. He could see what they were thinking. Sometimes they scoffed at her within earshot. It was better that way, Patrick thought. He did not want his family’s business being talked about in strangers’ living rooms anyway.
For his part, Patrick wondered: what was the use? What was the fucking use of vows and promises and strivings to be good and do right by people? He had been let down. It was easy to slip back into the old ways, find solace in the shebeens, in the drink and available bodies to be found there. As their six-month wedding anniversary passed, unmarked, he started to follow the path leading to the local shebeen the moment he stepped off the bus from work, delighting there in the distractions from his wife’s beautiful, sour face. Soon he was seldom home earlier than midnight, and never sober. Mary was nearly always asleep when he got home, turned on her side in their bed, away from him.
She changed tactics and started waiting up for him. She was obviously distressed at the state he was in. He could see judgement and disgust on her face. One night she cried and put her arms out to him. She pleaded with Patrick to stop, stop his reckless behaviour. She begged him to come back to her. She wanted her sweet Patrick back, she said, the one she had fallen in love with, the man who had her heart. “Don’t speak to me about love!” he had screamed at her.
And then, one night, it happened. For the first time he had raised his fist, and, with the force of close to a year’s suppressed rage, smacked it against the vulnerable curve of her lip. Mary crumpled to the floor. A wave of remorse instantly swept over him. Patrick knelt down next to her, cradled her sobbing face, whispered over and over, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.” Gently, he lifted her from the floor and led her to their bed, where he held her until her sobs subsided and she fell asleep in his arms. The sound of her even breathing comforted him. He was struck by the realisation that the protective swelling in his chest, which had fled that first night, was back. Gone was the pent-up anger he had carried in every muscle for the past months. There, in this unhappy bed, was tenderness again, an unexpected guest. He welcomed it with relief.
For a while after, Patrick took care with his wife. He enveloped her with concern, and showered tenderness upon her. He came straight home from work, abandoning his nightly detours to the shebeen. And when Mary gave him the news that she was pregnant with their first child, he thought they might be a family after all. She relaxed more, allowing her body and spirit to soften a little into his embrace.
But it didn’t last. It couldn’t. Some or other upset at work, or maybe an absence from home by Mary he deemed longer than necessary – he could not now remember which – and Patrick found himself back at the shebeen, buying rounds for an appreciative crowd. The anger sprouted within him again – its seed had not been eradicated – and, fuelled by liquor, it erupted again, each time with increased intensity.
Patrick hated the way she would drop to the floor at his first contact and roll herself into a ball, holding her arms over her growing belly, shielding herself and his baby from him as if he were a monster. It infuriated him. And when she cried or pleaded, that infuriated him more. It was better when she was in bed by the time he came home, but he could tell by her breathing when she wasn’t sleeping, all tucked tight, tight with the blanket round her. He saw the swell of her belly rise and fall as she lay there. Before he knew it, his hand would shoot out and he’d see her mouth contort as a lip split. “Liar,” he would whisper. “Whore. You say you care about this child? Liar!”
Soon after their first wedding anniversary Mary gave birth to a perfect baby boy. He had the sweetest face. When Patrick entered the room, where Mary was holding him and gazing down at him, enraptured and overwhelmed with love, it took him a few moments to see her tears. She didn’t look up at him, just kept her eyes on the tiny, unmoving, silent little bundle in her arms. Patrick did not have to move closer to know what he knew, to discover what had been given and taken at the same moment.
He stood motionless by the foot of the bed for what seemed like an eternity. Deep anguish distorted the contours of his face, but he would not allow himself to feel it. His eyes burning, mouth contorted, he looked at Mary, accusing her, hating her more than ever as tears streamed down her cheeks. “Happy?” he said. “You’ve killed another baby.” God had punished both of them for Mary’s sin.
Oh, the boy! Now, so many years later, Patrick could still see his small, serene face. The image would stay with him until he drew his last breath. He took out the precious memory of his son, the one with his nose and the curve of his mouth, almost daily, examining that cursed treasure that he couldn’t let go, could not put to rest. And now, on the bus, Grace’s face was somehow blurred into the image of the boy’s, so that, for a moment, he could not remember the features of either of his children. My son, my son! He felt the wound again, as he stepped off onto the road, fearing, this time, for Grace.
Patrick made his way through the burning barricades, hurrying straight to the house he had until recently shared with Mary and Grace. There were no cops around, thank goodness, but Patrick clenched his hand around his trusted Okapi all the same. He was not afraid to use it: anyone who thought they could mess with him would find that out. As he branched off from the main road, entering a maze of tributaries, the crowds thinned and the smell of burning petrol faded. A few metres from his old house he broke into a run. Just one more corner and he’d be there. He wanted to touch her, touch his Grace and feel her forehead, her limbs, make sure each part of her was intact. He rounded the bend and headed straight into a row of parked cars. They were outside of Tim’s home. Patrick’s heart stopped with fright. Something was happening here. There were too many cars, too many people milling around on a night when it would be safer to remain indoors. Not a light shone from his old home. Please God, he prayed again. Moving up to the front door, he knocked, repeating the previous night’s scene. “Mary, open the door!”
He saw a faint movement behind the dappled glass. Mary was there, sitting alone in the dark again. “Mary! Where’s Grace?” Mary got up from her seat and briefly moved out of sight. Then her head appeared through a crack in the small window at the side of the house.
“She’s here. She’s okay. And since when did you care anyway?” “I need to see her. Please, Mary.”
“She’s asleep. Go away.”
The window squeezed shut. As quickly as relief washed through Patrick, rage flushed his body. Bitch! How dare she! How dare she keep him away from his child? He wanted to pump the door with his fists, but a commotion was brewing next door.
Distracted by the growing crowd, Patrick went off to hear what was happening. Johnny was missing. That was too bad – Patrick was fond of Johnny. After commiserating with the gathering, he found himself in that habit of old, saying a prayer for the boy. He asked if he could help but no one paid him much attention and, after hanging around for a bit, feeling utterly useless, he walked slowly away into the night.
6
He had rolled in like overnight fog off the bay. Johnny was thirteen years old when he first appeared next door, conjured like a magician’s trick. Grace was eleven. He had moved in with Tim
and Rowena, a couple who lived in the neighbour’s garage because there was nowhere else to find safe, decent housing. They had just had a baby and then, one day, Johnny too. His arrival was not heralded, nor a happy occasion; he came and slotted right into their lives in the tiny converted structure that housed kitchen, bedroom and living room for four. To Grace’s eleven-year-old self Johnny might as well have been thirty, so much older did he seem. His eyes had a look of having seen too much, in too short a time; his body seemed stronger and more weathered than other boys his age. There were lots of other children living in the main house and the proliferation of back yard shacks next door. Johnny was unlike them. He never ran, played, laughed or teased. He had a seriousness about him that was beyond his years. He seemed to prefer to keep to himself.
Johnny’s story spread across the fences of the township faster than a bushfire, gathering momentum and embellishment as it moved. Despite their proximity to his new home, Grace’s was the last house on which the story settled. Johnny had been orphaned a few years earlier, left with only two older brothers who were already making their way in the world. The oldest had taken him in and, in his first misguided act of guardianship, had plucked Johnny out of school, setting him to work at a fruit and vegetable stand by the side of a slip-road off the highway. The boy would sit there, peddling his wares, from sunup to sunset, and was paid 25 cents per day for his labour. At home he was treated worse than the dog. His brother’s wife despised him and grudgingly fed this extra mouth the family’s leftover scraps. During the summer he slept on a mattress underneath the fruit and vegetable shelter in the back yard, partly to guard the wares, but mostly because his presence was unwanted in the main house. After one particularly vicious beating from his brother, Johnny ran away and drifted through the homes of a succession of distant relatives. After a few months of this, he ended up next door with Tim and Rowena. When he arrived his only possessions were a pair of shorts and the stained, yellowing shirt already on his back.
The first thing Tim and Rowena did for him was provide two new shirts and a fresh pair of trousers. The second was to enrol him in school. Although he hadn’t seen the inside of a classroom for years, it was soon apparent that he had a good head on him and a curiosity which enabled him to learn fast. Johnny loved school. He loved the order of the day broken up with two lunch breaks; loved his uniform; loved his dirty old satchel and the meagre books that were passed on to him. He did so well that he was allowed to skip a standard and before very long had almost caught up to where he should have been.
And now he was gone, snatched from the place he loved by God knew who.
Sleepless in bed that night, Grace’s mind was a frantic, caged animal as she searched the possibilities of where he could be, the state he might be in. She conjured his arrival in their lives, as if summoning him in that way would make him reappear in the flesh.
He was one of the few children in their neighborhood who had ventured over the fence into their yard. Mary, just home from work, was exhaling the day along with her cigarette smoke. Patrick was not yet home when they heard the timid knock on the back door. Mary, unaccustomed to guests, bristled with surprise and gestured to Grace with a sweep of the hand and a flash of panicked eyes to get the door.
“Good afternoon,” said Johnny politely, staring at some point above Grace’s head. “Is your mother home?”
His English was broken, not fluid, like hers. Mary had made sure she spoke only English in the house so as not to be mistaken for one of those common coloureds.
“She’s not here,” Grace replied.
For the first time, after weeks of peering at him through their lace curtains, Grace was able to study him up close. The hair, thick and wavy, clung in stubborn curls close to his scalp. A smattering of freckles danced across sunburned cheeks. Guarded eyes refused to meet hers, leaving Grace to contemplate thick, long lashes. An awkward silence looped between them, crackling the air. Emboldened by his shyness, his shuffling from one foot to the other, Grace felt powerful; the gatekeeper between him and what he wanted.
“Then I’ll come again later,” he mumbled, turning to shuffle away on cracked and dusty heels.
“What is it?”
Unbeknown to her, Mary had appeared behind Grace and she addressed the boy sharply.
“Middag, Auntie. Auntie, can I do a little bit of work for you in the yard, pull out some plants or maybe sweep?”
Grace suppressed a laugh. Had this fool actually seen the state of their yard, the overgrown grass, sagging fence and the dog shit just left, deposited by strays who had as little respect for their property as everyone else? Yet she was surprised by the boy’s boldness in her mother’s presence – his voice was much clearer and more direct speaking now to Mary than when he’d spoken to her. Usually, her mother had the opposite effect on people. They’d look away, or stare for just a moment too long while finding the words to speak to her. Grace knew that she possessed no such mesmeric beauty.
Mary considered his request for a moment. Grace could almost count the myriad concerns scuttling through her mother’s mind. Then, despite herself, Mary gave a cheerful answer.
“Okay. Yes. Pull out those weeds in the front over there. Just don’t tramp on my plants. And when you’re done with that, sweep the back stoep. The yard broom is behind the house.
He nodded. “Okay, Auntie.”
For a moment, Grace expected a smile but his features remained sombre.
“And Johnny,” Mary added haughtily.
“Yes, Auntie?’
“I am not your auntie. Mrs de Leeuw will do.”
Grace found her mother’s boldness uncharacteristic. Her excitement about having the boy in their yard was tempered by a fear of what could happen when Patrick returned home. For Mary to even have spoken to the boy came as a surprise. She knew her mother thought of the people next door as low class, not worthy of association. Shortly after Johnny’s arrival, Grace had heard her complain to Patrick.
“It’s not enough for them to breed like rats any more. Now they have to take in other people’s throwaways? Where did the boy come from? What has he already seen in life? He has a dark look about him, that one. He’ll be a bad influence on the others.”
Patrick had ignored her.
Grace watched Johnny sweep the back yard, careful not to disturb the delicate fall of the lace curtain lest he notice her interest. When Mary found her at her vantage point she snapped at her.
“What do you think you’re doing? Come away from that window. What if he sees you? What will he think?”
Grace wandered off to her bedroom. With her homework done, there was nothing to do except listen to the radio. She turned up the volume of Springbok Radio’s request hour just enough so that the sound filled her room without drifting through the rest of the house, and along with George Michael, lamented the careless whispers of good friends. Mary hated loud music blaring from the house – it gave a bad impression, she said.
Later on her way to the living room, Grace passed the kitchen, where she found her mother, to the left of the window, transfixed, as she watched Johnny work. Grace glided by, not daring to disturb whatever was happening in Mary’s mind.
By the time Patrick returned from work, Johnny was already back next door. He didn’t notice the neater yard, so Mary waited until suppertime until she broached the subject.
“Patrick,” she started out in a confident tone, “that boy next door, you know, the new one, Johnny, came to knock here this afternoon. Asked if we had any work for him. I liked that, you know, trying to better himself. Trying to work. So I made him clean the yard, gave him fifty cents. He did quite a good job... surprisingly.”
Across the blue kitchen table Patrick stared at his wife. Grace held her breath. In those few brief sentences lay a world of potential hurt, a number of triggers to a range of explosions. He could be mad that she’d employed someone, spending his money, without asking. The mask of suspicion could settle over his face and he could accuse her o
f something with the boy. He could twist her words about trying to get a job into a slight, directed at his last, six-month stint of unemployment, now thankfully over. He could take it as a dig at him for not doing the man’s work of cleaning the yard. Grace looked down into her chicken curry, her appetite gone. She scraped bits of meat around in the rich, fragrant sauce, praying for this cup to pass.
When they came Patrick’s words were low, filled with a building malice.
“I thought he was dirty, one of the rats. Not to be trusted.”
Mary wilted. She had contradicted herself and Patrick was seizing the gap between her stated stance and her actions today. More grievously, she had made a decision concerning the house and their lives without consulting him. Grace started silently to curse her mother. She should really know better by now than to do such things.
“Well, I thought it would be good, Patrick....”
“You thought, Mary?”
A crooked sneer contorted his face. Mary stiffened and placed her fork on her plate. His words were a direct challenge, a test of his dominion which she would have to pass in order for all of them to have the long, looming night be a peaceful one. Grace’s silent prayers turned into a chant. Let it go, Mama, just let it go.
“I’m sorry, Patrick. I should have waited for you. I just thought, better than being idle.... The devil finds work....” Her voice trailed off.
Grace fixated on her plate, sliding rice onto her fork without making any scraping noises. She had gotten a hiding for that before. Relief washed over her. Thank God Mary was making an effort to sound contrite.
“I’m really sorry, Patrick....” Her voice was tinged with desperation.
It struck the right note. Patrick sighed, nodded knowingly and continued to eat his curry. The rest of the meal passed in silence.
After Grace cleared the supper dishes, Patrick went outside the back door to inspect Johnny’s handiwork. He stayed out there for a long time and when he returned, he leaned over the bottom half of the split back door, sun-kissed and smiling.
Grace Page 4