Sex and Stravinsky

by Barbara Trapido

And the person directly in front of her is this male giant, so that when he puts his seat back into ‘reclining’ position, it just keeps on coming until it’s practically touching her forehead. The whole thing is a bit like being on that school coach to France, only ten times worse because it’s taking about a million years longer, plus it’s at night when you’re longing to be asleep. Then, just when she’s nearly asleep – like about

  5 a.m. – there’s this little kid behind her, who wakes up and starts kicking the back of her chair.

  Zoe has been in what Caroline calls ‘a sulk’ ever since they parted from Gérard and got on that train for Paris. She’s been silent all through that ‘treat’ day in Paris, when her mum has come over all splashy and smarmy, and they’re staying in this ‘dear little hotel’ near this big kind of plant-nursery place and her mum’s like, ‘Paris-Paris-ooh-aah’ the whole time and she’s forever trying to buy Zoe new clothes and coaxing her to eat out in cafés and restaurants, but Zoe’s just shaken her head and stared at her feet. She’s refused to change out of her same jeans and jumper that she’s been wearing with Gérard’s T-shirt that says ‘Zizou’, along with the black Moschino jacket. The only concession she’s made is to allow her mother to buy her a pair of cheap black baseball boots. And there’s no way she’s in the mood to go stuffing her face in restaurants – or to eat anything at all, except for those baguettes with ham and cheese, when she’s too hungry not to. Plus she keeps on chewing this fruit-flavoured gum called Hollywood, that Gérard has introduced her to.

  She’s really wanted to go on the Eurostar – and on a plane the way Matti and Maggs do every summer – but not now. Because of what’s happened. Because she and Gérard were having such a fun secret time together, day after day. They were going to be ballet dancers and travel the world together and even Gérard’s dad was quite sweet to her – not like that revolting mother and sister – except he was nearly always asleep, or drunk, or being ‘triste’. And now Caroline’s gone and told on them all to Gérard’s headmistress, just like she was their social worker or something. Zoe thinks her mother has been a traitor.

  Anyway, everything has got messed up. Zoe is in quite a troubled state of mind because she knows that she’s never going to forgive her mother. Not as long as she lives. And thinking about all of these things just keeps on making her snivel, which is embarrassing, because it’s so pathetic and babyish. She knows that. And then the aeroplane lights click on and they all get this box of soggy-looking breakfast plonked in front of them, after which Zoe reaches for the sick bag, because they’ve started their descent.

  Then they finally get off the plane in Johannesburg, where she’s hit by this wall of heat and blazing sunlight, which doesn’t help since she’s been feeling puke ever since the plane began its descent and they’ve got about two hours to wait for their connecting flight to Durban. But her mum, like from nowhere, has suddenly got these posh designer sunglasses she’s put on and then she tells Zoe to stand by the ‘carousel’ while she goes straight to the Ladies’ and changes into these summery clothes that she’s obviously had stashed in her hand luggage, because when she comes out she’s wearing this amazing little yellow sundress that comes to about twenty centimetres above her knees and she’s got these ropy yellow espadrille things on her feet. And she’s obviously been putting stuff on her face because her skin and her eyes look all gee-whiz.

  Then Caroline is trying to get Zoe to change as well, but Zoe won’t even take off the Moschino jacket, though she’s feeling really sweaty and she’s probably smelly as well, because she hasn’t even cleaned her teeth, never mind all her little creases.

  After that, because they’ve got all this time to kill, they go and sit in a juice bar, where Caroline is trying to phone Josh and getting nowhere, plus then the juice bar won’t take Caroline’s French or English money because she hasn’t yet changed it into rands. But just as she’s standing there looking a bit thrown, with the two long mango drinks on the counter, this guy butts in, who’s really tall and quite hunky-looking, except that he’s about mid-forties-ish and he’s one of those bald guys with a shaven head, and he goes, ‘Please. Allow me,’ and he pays for their drinks, which is really quite embarrassing.

  Then he buys himself a cup of coffee and he looks round for somewhere to sit because the café is quite crowded and Caroline goes, ‘Won’t you join us?’ so he does.

  And then they introduce themselves, and Caroline says, ‘This is my daughter Zoe.’

  By this time he’s said his own name, which is Herman Somebody. It’s something that sounds a bit like ‘Murray’, only it’s not. But right away, because of him being so big and tall and muscly, a bit like someone’s made him out of one of those giant old-fashioned Meccano sets that middle-aged nerds collect, Zoe thinks, Herman Munster. She doesn’t really want to shake hands with him and she’s kind of sinking into the collar of the black Moschino jacket wanting to be invisible, especially because her mum is being so smiley and talky, and she’s even started explaining all about how she hasn’t been able to get hold of her husband because, even though she’s got the right SIM card, she can’t seem to get through, et cetera.

  Then Mr H. Munster says to try his ‘cell’ and he hands her this fancy-looking, top-of-the-range thing that’s making Caroline’s phone look like it belongs to Mrs Flintstone. But even then she still can’t seem to get hold of Zoe’s dad, though at least she gets the phone to ring. It just rings and rings. Zoe has suddenly started getting worried about her dad. Like where is he?

  It turns out that H. Munster is on the same flight as them to Durban, which is where he lives, so he says not to worry, because he’s arranged to have his car waiting for him at the airport so he can easily run them to the hotel where Caroline’s ‘other half’ is supposed to be staying and she can go check things out.

  ‘No problem,’ he says.

  ‘Oh, gosh, thank you,’ Caroline says. ‘That is so-o kind,’ and she’s looking sort of shiny, only it’s not because she’s sweaty like Zoe. It’s more as if she’s glowing, which is really weird.

  It makes Zoe start thinking again about Gran and how she’s just died, so she says, ‘Hey, Mum? When is Gran’s funeral?’

  She only says it because she’s anxious to know, but it turns out she’s said it right in the middle of when Mr H. Munster is telling Caroline about how he’s just come from Accra, where he’s been liaising with the Housing Ministry and how he’s been doing this and doing that, and her mum is saying, ‘How fascinating,’ so Caroline looks at her sharply and says, ‘Zoe! Don’t interrupt! It’s really not like you to be so rude!’

  Zoe sort of shrinks, hugging her bruises, because she can’t help thinking it’s like seriously not fair that Caroline’s allowed to come barging in and interrupt her and Gérard any time she likes, and just go and wreck everything, while she, Zoe, isn’t even allowed to ask about her own grandmother’s funeral. Then, when they finally get on the plane, it’s quite small and it’s two-thirds empty so Mr H. Munster comes and sits next to Caroline, while Zoe spends the whole time staring out of the window, and hoping that she’s soon going to see her dad, but she can still hear Caroline, more or less giving him her whole life history, like about how she was born in Australia and about how even five minutes on the airport tarmac in Johannesburg is such a turn-on for her, what with all that ‘marvellous’ heat and the ‘brilliant’ sunlight, which has made her realise what she’s been missing all these years.

  ‘To think that for seventeen years I’ve been living in a country where the natural light is like having a ten-watt bulb screwed into the sky,’ she says to H. Munster. ‘Oh how the grey of it gets right into your brain!’

  Zoe thinks her mum is being quite disloyal, because it’s like she’s belittling their lives in England. And, anyway, isn’t everybody’s brain grey? But it makes Mr H. M. laugh and he says, ‘Is it?’ which is something he says quite a lot. Eezit?

  And then, once they’ve landed and they’ve crossed to the car park t
hrough an even worse wall of heat, they get in this air-conditioned BMW that’s practically as long as a hearse, and they sort of waft along to this beachfront area to find her dad’s hotel and Caroline’s all ‘Oh-what-fun-this-is’ about the seafront, even though H. Munster has explained that this is actually the crappy downmarket bit of the beach, and it’s got all these big chain-eating places along the front, called stuff like Heifer and Steer and OK Corral with like gigantic shiny pictures on billboards of what you can eat, like a T-bone steak, or a triple cheeseburger as big as your head that Zoe knows Caroline would really rather be dead than eat. Like she’d be really disapproving if you actually went in and wanted to order a burger and fries and she’d probably make you have the salad option, even if it had anchovies in it.

  But when they get to her dad’s quite crap-looking little hotel, it’s in a narrow back street away from the beach, wedged between this hole-in-the-wall Greek taverna and a tiny sandwich bar. It takes for ever for anyone to come to reception when Caroline rings the bell and then the person who shuffles in just shrugs and says that yes, ‘Dr Silver’ is booked in and, yes, Caroline can leave a message for him, but Caroline insists that they must actually enter Josh’s room, where it’s pretty obvious, to Zoe’s relief, that her dad has just recently gone out, because his toothbrush and his flannel are still wet and the shower is kind of steamy.

  ‘This is really driving me crazy,’ Caroline says, once she and Zoe are back at H. Munster’s car, but he says, ‘No worries.’ Please to hop in and he’s sure they can track down the missing husband by contacting him via his place of work.

  ‘You say he’s here for a conference,’ he says. ‘So what’s his line of business?’

  Caroline tells him it’s theatre history and that Josh has come for a conference up at the university.

  ‘Is it?’ H. M. says again. ‘As a matter of fact, the wife’s into all that, only with her it’s dance. You know. Ballet.’

  Somehow Zoe finds it hard to believe that Mrs Munster’s got anything to do with ‘ballet’, because if she’s anything like the size of her husband then she probably looks a bit like Babar the Elephant’s wife Celeste, clomping around with pink leg warmers on thick elephant ankles and wearing a pink tutu with a huge stretch waistband. Not that Mr Munster is fat, she’s got to admit. He’s just a bit like embarrassingly big, sort of like being in the same room as Arnie Schwarzenegger, but she has to admit that he is really trying to help.

  ‘Look,’ says H. M. ‘Come back to mine and make yourselves at home. Take a shower. Check out the uni in the phone book. Sort this thing out. Meanwhile I’ll get some fish on the braai, what do you say? Maybe some prawns as well. No problem. I warn you, I make a mean chilli sauce. I learnt it in Mozambique. And the wife would be really interested to meet you guys. No kidding.’

  So then they’re back in the BMW and, by the time they’ve floated up the hill to this airy ridge and through these wide electronic gates onto H. M’s sweep of drive, Zoe’s into one of those hopeless, non-stop yawning phases, where each yawn triggers the next, so H. Munster says, ‘Ach shame, kleintjie. You really tired, hey? You know, I’ve got three kids myself and I’d say you definitely need to go crash.’

  But, all the time, between the yawning, Zoe’s just slightly wondering like what does her mother think she’s doing, letting a strange man whisk them off like this? Because usually she’d be the one who’d be having ten fits if it was Zoe taking lifts from strange men, never mind entering their houses. And especially men built like they could qualify for the Springbok rugby team? I mean, just check out the size of H. Munster’s feet.

  Zoe can see their host’s feet because by now he’s parked the car and they’ve all got out. They’re going crunch, crunch up this gravel path between the palm trees that he says the weaver birds like for making their nests; up through this incredible green and flowery space, like it was the local botanical gardens or something. Caroline’s done karate, and she’s got size 9 feet and, as far as Zoe can tell, her mum just never gets scared. Zoe thinks her feet look silly next to Mr Munster’s and her mum’s, because hers have stopped growing at size 4.

  But God, this house is amazing, because, for a start, it’s huge and it’s like all on its own on the top of this hill with a turret that’s got pointy windows, and with verandas upstairs and downstairs, which have got pretty wooden balustrades running all round. It’s got stained glass with birds in the front door that’s really wide and just inside it’s got this black-and-white stone floor and then just miles of wide wooden floorboards and huge white sofas, just like in a glossy magazine. And, through all the windows, you can see other bits of the garden with lots of trees and huge clambering flowers, sort of almost exploding like fireworks, and there’s this twinkly blue swimming pool, like Mr Herman Munster must be a ‘media mogul’ or something.

  Anyway, then right away he brings them these hefty plum-juice drinks with lots of clinky ice and he gives Caroline a phone book and a phone and says to call the uni while he gets some food going, but Zoe’s mum is too busy going ‘Ooh-aah’ about H. Munster’s abstract art et cetera. And Zoe’s just about to fall asleep all over this massive snow-white sofa, but Caroline shakes her and makes her sit up, because their ‘host’ has offered them lunch, she says.

  ‘Ach, no worries, you just go find a bed – any bed – and sleep on it,’ H. Munster says, and then, because he and Caroline have started getting all intense over this massive painting of wavy lines that Zoe, on the quiet, thinks looks like a baby chimp could’ve done it in about five minutes, she goes wandering off upstairs to find a bed, preferably one inside that lovely turret thingy like a fat, six-sided pepper pot that she’s seen from the outside. So she keeps going up and up until she gets to this top landing, where there’s a boat oar stuck to the wall with names and dates painted on it. And, after that, there’s this funny little extra staircase which is really narrow, and with a low, narrow door that H. Munster would have to bend himself in half to get through.

  And it opens on to this room with windows all round, like being inside a lighthouse, but, most of all, Zoe can’t believe her eyes, and she draws in one big, gasping breath, because it’s just like she’s tapped her heels three times and said some magic words, and she’s been teleported into what looks like Ballet Dreamland. First of all, there’s this beautiful desk table with a computer on it and, hanging directly over the computer, there’s this real-life ballerina’s tutu that’s just got to be for Odile in Swan Lake because it’s black with an embroidered silver swan-feather design edging all the bodice and going down the front. The tutu is looped on to a quilted silk coat hanger that’s been suspended, kind of invisibly, from the ceiling.

  Zoe reaches out carefully and touches the tutu, just as though it might crumble to dust on contact. It sways slightly, causing sunlight to flicker across it in narrow shafts from all the pointed windows and a faint sprinkle of fairy dust descends from it on to the computer. Then, when she finally turns from the tutu; turns slowly, right round in a full circle, she sees that there are four framed and mounted watercolours on the walls – and the watercolours are none other than the cover illustrations from all four Lola books! There’s a small stack of books on the desk table that are a bit like some of her dad’s books at home in the bus – like about the Ballets Russes and stuff – and, on top of the books, there are some A4 printed-out pages with a snowstorm paperweight on top, so she gives the paperweight a little shake and then she peeks at the printout and it’s so incredible, because it’s just got to be the beginning of a new Lola book – one she hasn’t yet read – and it starts out with ‘the Company’ on tour in the Czech Republic, and Lola’s best dancer friend, Sergei, has just had a fall on some steps at the train station in Prague, and he’s hurt his knee really badly, which could mean the end of his dancing career. Oh no! But Zoe doesn’t dare to turn over the page, so she puts back the paperweight and then – oh my God! – before she’s thought about what she’s doing, she’s left-clicked on the co
mputer mouse and this letter has jumped up.

  Dear Henrietta

  We are all thrilled to be publishing Lola in Wenceslas Square . . .

  Zoe doesn’t dare to read on. She backs away in some alarm and sits down on this lovely old-fashioned sort of twirly iron day bed, praying that the screen will soon go blank, which it does, thank God. The bed has got a stripy knitted blanket on it in lots of colours, and a rolled-up patchwork quilt at the foot end. From the bed she can see, in a big cheval mirror, that there are some black ballet shoes under the day bed, so she leans down and gropes about until she’s got them in her hands. Then she takes off her baseball boots and her jeans, and she puts on the ballet shoes, which are exactly the right size! So what is going on? It’s like she’s inside a fairy tale. And then, as befits a girl in a fairy tale, all the yawning catches up with her. She draws her legs up on to the day bed, pulls up the patchwork quilt, curls up small and falls into a deep, deep sleep. She sleeps uninterrupted and for hours, until she’s suddenly jolted awake by this incredible non-stop screaming. Sort of high and shrill, like a girl who is screaming her head off.

  The room is really dark and, for a moment, she’s too scared to move. Then, still in the ballet shoes, she tiptoes to one of the six little windows and peers out. She sees that lights, like tiny bright stars, are clicking on in the grass, as Mr Herman Munster and her tall, Amazon mother are running together towards the furthest end of the garden. And her mother is wearing different clothes. She’s sort of dressed like a fairy. Then the little stars click off and they are swallowed up in the foliage. After that, and just moments later, as she’s still staring out transfixed into the darkness, she hears the slam of car doors and a second, daintier pair of people is running in the same direction – click, click go the little bright stars – and one of the people is her dad! Then it’s obvious to Zoe that she’s still asleep and dreaming, because, though she tries calling out to him, no voice will come. And then it’s all gone quiet, and the stars in the grass have gone dark and she’s back asleep on the old iron day bed, with the quilt drawn up to her chin.