by Rosie Rowell
As we turn to go, a sound like distant thunder makes us stop. It grows louder, as though it’s coming straight for us. ‘What in God’s name is that?’ says Louisa.
‘Ag, it’s the train,’ the lady says with a flick of her hand. ‘Transporting iron ore down to Saldahna,’ she adds at the sight of our blank faces. The noise continues, unrelenting.
‘How do you stand it?’ says Louisa.
‘I don’t even hear it any more,’ says the woman and she closes her front door.
Eventually the noise fades away into the afternoon. ‘Well, this is super,’ mutters Louisa. ‘I wonder if my mother knew about the train.’
We get a closer look at the track as we follow the directions to our house. It’s like a rusty slash running across the land. Louisa’s mouth is in a tight line. ‘Helen didn’t mention any of this,’ she mutters.
Our house looks promising from the road. It is the last one in a row along the seafront; a white clapboard cottage perched on stilts. The entrance to the drive is partly hidden by the coastal bush that borders the house. The bottom of Brett’s car scrapes on something hard as we park under a Brazilian Pepper tree. Mum had a Brazilian Pepper removed from our garden because it was an ‘aggressive alien species’. Unfortunately it was also a very good windshield and the garden has never quite recovered.
‘Oops,’ says Louisa, ‘was that a stone?’
Brett gets out. ‘Nope, a root.’
The house is perfect. As we get out the car I feel a child-like excitement about this week for the first time. The pictures on the booking site were nice but seeing it in front of us makes our week away suddenly real. Steps lead up to a large wooden deck that overlooks the long, white, gleaming beach. A dream beach for running. I walk to the edge of the deck and lean against the railing. To the left the bay ends where a hill meets the sea in a rocky point. Up against the rocks on the shoreline is a set of long low buildings. ‘What are those?’ I point.
‘Crayfish factory,’ replies Brett. Even though they’re at the other end of the bay, the buildings have a forlorn look about them.
In the other direction it looks as though the beach could carry on all the way up to Namibia.
‘Magic,’ smiles Brett, standing next to me.
‘Yay!’ I say and give him a hug.
There is a big wooden table and chairs on the deck. ‘Perfect for sundowners,’ I comment.
‘Fuck sundowners,’ says Brett, and flips the lid off a bottle of beer. His luggage consists primarily of beer and his surfboard.
Louisa appears on the other side of Brett. It’s hard to remember that Brett and I were friends before Louisa arrived. We’ve been friends since we started school; the two smallest kids in the class.
‘See, Lou – we’ve got our own private path down to the beach.’ I point to a winding trail that cuts through hip-height bushes to the sand. ‘And that’s a serious beach.’
‘Ja, ja, and let me guess – the water is as warm as a bath.’
Brett and I look at each other and laugh. ‘Nope!’
Inside, the house seems to be suffering an identity crisis. The long dumpy sofa and mismatched armchairs look as though they’ve come straight out of someone’s granny’s sitting room. There is a heavy round dining table and a large bookshelf stuffed with paperbacks and board games. But the rest of the living area is white – the walls, the ceiling, the floor. Sunshine pours in through the wide windows on either side of the room. Louisa comes and stands next to me. She nods her head approvingly. ‘Beach chic,’ she announces.
I smile at her. ‘A whole week without parents!’ This week away has been a marker in our minds for years – our rite of passage from childhood into adulthood – and it has finally arrived. In a rush I reach out and hug her. I feel her return the hug but then stiffen slightly and pull back. I’ve come to recognise that reaction – Mum’s friends do it all the time. It’s normally followed by, “You’ve lost so much weight!” ‘Let’s see the rest of the house,’ I say quickly and turn away to avoid her eye.
There is a small kitchen, a bathroom and two bedrooms. ‘I know, I know,’ I say loudly, choosing the smaller room with two single beds. ‘Please keep the bonking down.’ I dump my bag on the near bed and look around. The floor is covered in sisal matting; on the wall are three sepia prints in driftwood frames. My phone rings – it’s Mum. I flick it to silent. From Louisa and Brett’s room comes the sound of laughing; the click of the door closing quietly. I sit down on the bed. Whatever. It’s not their fault they’re happy. This week I will run and chill and figure out a way to get around Mum.
The end of the day glimmers faintly on the horizon as we walk along empty roads, following Helen’s directions to the house holding the party. ‘It would be pretty creepy to live here all year around,’ I say, looking at the few lit-up houses amongst their darkened neighbours.
‘Just you and the baboons,’ says Louisa. But there is also a feeling about this deserted town that tugs at me. You must feel a certain wildness and energy living beside this untamed coast. I know Louisa would think me deranged if I tried to explain this, though, so I keep it to myself.
The party house appears to have no roof. Music and light and voices spill out over high terracotta walls. Louisa speeds up as we approach. I know that feeling. We used to sneak out all the time from her house on a Saturday night. Her father snores so loudly you could land a helicopter in their garden and no one would notice. Tonight I feel my feet growing heavy.
We make our way through the maze of parked cars and enter the house through the open door on the side. As soon as we step inside, the house makes sense. It’s built like a Moroccan fortress, with a kitchen and living area opening into a large courtyard. There is a break in the music. The clumps of bodies all seem to stop talking and look around, making our arrival more obvious. Then one of those summer dance anthems starts playing and they turn away again, like a weird game of musical statues. Louisa looks back and winks at me.
‘Louisa!’ calls Helen’s voice. It seems to be coming from the group standing near a tree in the courtyard. Fairy lights twinkle from its branches. Louisa’s smile grows wide. She waves and makes her way towards the group. I turn away and bump straight into Theresa.
She is unnecessarily pretty, with big brown eyes and soft shiny hair to match. She’s had boyfriends since pre-school. Our mums are best friends. They met in the maternity ward; Theresa is two days older than me. ‘Ooh, twins!’ everybody used to say. I don’t remember her dad – her parents got divorced a long time ago, so we were dumped together at every social event. ‘Isn’t it nice they have each other!’ our mums’ friends would say, meaning ‘Thank God they don’t have to hang around us all afternoon.’ Theresa had a way of behaving like an angel in front of the grown-ups, but when we were sent off to play, she made it clear that we weren’t friends. It doesn’t bother me any more.
Tonight she’s wearing a blue dress with skimpy straps to show off her beautiful collarbones.
‘Wow! Your hair!’ she says, tilting her head to the side. It takes me a moment to remember my chopped-off, peroxided new look. In a glance she manages to destroy the hairdresser’s pronouncement of ‘ultra funky’ and makes me feel like an attention-seeking child. ‘It’s so … you!’ she laughs and pulls a hand through her glossy mane.
‘Isn’t it?’ I nod, adopting her fake voice. But annoyingly she doesn’t get the sarcasm.
‘How are you?’ She tries to take my hand, her Bambi eyes large.
‘Fine.’ Until a few months ago, ‘LouandGrace’ used to be said as one word at school. But increasingly Louisa has been hanging out with Helen and Theresa. I know that everyone has noticed the shift and no doubt has been talking about it. I can see it in Theresa’s eyes.
‘My mum said you’re going to an eating disorder clinic.’ Theresa speaks in a hushed voice reserved for the sick and dying.
‘I’m not. I’m going to university, just like you.’
‘Oh, OK,’ she says in an annoy
ingly disbelieving way.
I don’t want to hear any more of what she might have to say. ‘I’m going to get a drink,’ I say abruptly and walk away.
I can’t see Lou or Brett but it seems as though while I was talking to Theresa about fifty people have walked into the house; it’s packed. As I walk off, I know that if I look back, Theresa will be talking to one of the other girls, looking in my direction, so I step out into the courtyard. There must be people here I know, but the thought of finding them and thinking up something to say makes me feel very tired. In the far corner of the yard is a glowing fire pit. I don’t recognise anyone gathered around it and sit down gratefully on the edge of the group. It’s moments like this that I think seriously about taking up smoking. Maybe I should just carry a pack around so that I can light one up and look as though I have a reason for being on my own.
I can pick out Louisa’s laugh above the noise. Mum says you can always hear the sound of your own child crying above all the others; it’s that way with Louisa’s laugh. The first thing teachers did at the beginning of each year would be to seat Louisa and me at opposite ends of the classroom. ‘We’ve heard about you two,’ they’d say, nodding. But we didn’t need to be sitting near each other. A look across the classroom was enough to set us off.
There is a nudge in my ribs. A hand next to me is holding a bottle of tequila. I look up. More people have joined the group around the fire since I sat down. The guy holding out the bottle is so close to me that we’re almost touching. I can’t see much of his face in the firelight, but something about him unnerves me. For the first time I understand what Mum means about people’s energy. The thought of her is enough to make me reach out for the bottle. You can keep your ‘energy’ and your self-actualisation, Mum. This week is supposed to be about having fun. I feel the rough design down the square sides, like Braille for giants.
‘Are you going to drink some or just fondle the bottle?’ he says. He tucks his sand-coloured hair behind his ear. His voice belongs to Robert Redford in Out Of Africa.
I take a sip and work hard at not spitting it out.
‘Easy,’ he says. I take another, this time prepared for the feeling of liquid fire in my stomach, before handing the bottle back to him.
‘Cool house,’ I say, looking around.
‘It’s a straw house,’ he replies, looking past me at the structure.
I can feel the tequila make its way around my body. ‘Is that what the little piggy told you?’
He looks at me and laughs. His grin is boyish, as if the two of us are in on a joke. His eyes crinkle. I can tell immediately that he’s older than us by the way he seems so comfortable in his body. ‘The house is constructed of straw bales. Instead of bricks.’
‘Oh,’ I say and turn away. I hope that Theresa has seen this guy laughing with me.
The groups of people have become denser. Soon it will turn into one big crush of bodies. Someone changes the music, which causes an outcry. I scan the crowd, trying to guess the ages of everyone here. On the surface we all seem to wear the same uniform – guys in shorts and T-shirts; the girls in summer dresses and pretty much everyone in flip-flops. The main difference between the guys is the size of their bellies. The girls are easier to age, not by the way they dress but the way they stand. How have all these people appeared out of a seemingly deserted town?
‘Are these all locals?’ I ask the guy next to me. But he’s in a conversation with somebody else, so I pretend I didn’t say anything. I feel the signs of this turning into another of those crying in the corner parties, the way some people feel the beginnings of a migraine.
‘Weekend locals,’ answers the guy, turning back. He winks and hands me back the bottle of tequila.
1. Venomous tree snake
2. Crayfish Kitchen
3. Beachcomber
SATURDAY
Even before I’m awake I know that something is wrong. The most appalling noise seems to throb through me. The pulse in my head is so strong that I can’t open my eyes. It fills the room. It is as if the whole house is vibrating to it. It outlasts the possibility of being a low-flying plane or an earthquake or a passing apocalypse. When I am beginning to worry that it will shake our little stilted house loose, it disappears into nothing. But of course – the blasted train.
Light streams through the window above my head. It is startlingly bright, as if this little room is the sole receptor of the morning rays. Even the flimsy cream curtains shine. And it’s suffering from a shortage of air. It is only when I try to sit up that I realise the throbbing in my head has nothing to do with the train. I look down and notice I’m in my T-shirt but nothing else. The pounding in my head steps up a gear but it’s not a thought I care to explore until I’ve brushed my teeth and swallowed at least two painkillers.
The house is thick with sleep. On the passage wall opposite me is a mounted print of a topographical map of South Africa. It looks like the land is covered in an outbreak of angry acne. On the other side of their bedroom door, Louisa and Brett will be in bed. Louisa always sleeps coiled up in a tight ball. Well, she used to. I feel like an imposter stealing about, trying to make the bathroom door shut soundlessly.
I open the mirror-fronted medicine chest above the basin and leave it ajar. This is no time to have to face myself. My thoughts keep returning to last night, but I draw a worrying blank. Apart from tequila and being ‘really fun’. What did I say, what did I do? It’s fine for Louisa to get drunk because she simply gets louder and more fun. I, on the other hand – what could I have admitted about myself, and to whom? A shudder ripples through me. This is why I hardly ever let myself drink.
I remember masses of people and the guy with the tequila bottle. Oh dear – and dancing on a counter. Louisa’s look of surprise, and telling her to loosen up.
If only I’d stuck to crying in a corner. A twist of dread wraps itself around my intestines. I will have made a fool of myself, and in front of Theresa and Helen. On the first night of our holiday. The thought makes me want to vomit. No doubt it will get back to Mum. Why do I do this? I am such an idiot. My breath feels shallow and snatched. If only I could get out of my head. The only thing that helps when I feel like this is running. Rory called it my ‘literal escape mechanism’. No shit.
I pull my running clothes from my bag, fumble under my bed for my shoes and open the door. It’s going to hurt, but that’s OK. At home I run in baggy track pants and a sweatshirt to avoid Mum’s comments but here I pull on running shorts and a fleece. Back in the passage, I hesitate, caught by a nagging sensation that I’m forgetting something. It’s called a hangover, I tell myself, deal with it.
In the kitchen I avoid looking at the counter littered with a half-eaten pizza and empty chip packets, and reach for the jug of cold water in the fridge. The shock of icy liquid rushing down into my stomach intensifies the throbbing in my skull. The sliding door is open. That’s not clever. We may be halfway up the West Coast but this is still South Africa. And let’s not forget about the baboons. Louisa teases me about the way I keep the doors locked even when we’re home, but then we don’t all get to live in high-walled, laser-protected houses in Constantia.
The fresh morning breeze pulls me closer and I start warming up my ankles as I walk towards the deck. This proves too coordinated a task and I grab onto the back of the sofa to stop myself tripping. This is when I see the boots. They are far too big to be Brett’s. The black leather is scuffed to a charcoal grey, moulded to the feet that stepped out of them. They sit next to the sofa, side by side, winking at me. ‘What?’ I say. They know something I don’t. I hurry on towards the deck, but come to an abrupt stop as I reach the door.
‘Told ya!’ gloat the black boots behind me. Leaning against the railing is a boy – correction, a man – wearing a navy jersey and what looks like my sarong. The heavy cloud of pain in my head bursts, like a whacked pinata, to reveal slices of lemon and big hands and me insisting on a game of dare. ‘This is not good,’ I mutter. He keeps
very still, as if he is concentrating on something out to sea, but the ocean is calm and empty this morning. As I watch, his right foot lazily rubs his left ankle. He stretches his shoulders, making a slight arch in his back, then returns to watching. I’m overwhelmed by a desire to walk up behind him and thread my arms around his waist, and also equally horrified at the thought. I cannot shake the sense that I have known that back and those arms. That I’d like to count the scars and freckles that litter them.
Tequila Guy turns around. ‘Morning, sleepy,’ he says and grins. He tucks a strand of hair behind his ear but it’s too short and falls back into his face. ‘How’s that head?’
‘Fine,’ I say, nodding. ‘Fine.’ For fuck’s sake, Grace, say something else! But my mind is empty of any other word. And I’m longing, aching to be on the beach. The only thing to do is make a run for it. I’m across the deck and halfway down the stairs before I manage a strangled ‘Bye!’ and a wave without looking back. I hear him reply, but can’t make it out. At the top of the sandy path that leads to the beach, I turn back, shrug my shoulders and shake my head.
He speaks again.
I’m going to have to go back. ‘What?’ I call from a safe distance. I have to shield my face against the morning sun. ‘I couldn’t hear you. Spook.’ His name leaves my lips of its own accord.
He rubs the back of his head. He looks down at me, a smile playing across his face. ‘I said, “Have a good run.”’
‘Oh,’ I say, backing away, ‘OK.’
I stay close to the shoreline and pound out a rhythm into the sand. Stu-pid bloo-dy i-di-ot. Who is he? What is he doing here? I summon up all the indignation I have even though the answer is perfectly obvious.
I-di-ot. I-di-ot. The rhythm matches the pounding in my head. It feels as though I’m dragging weights attached to my legs but there is no option of stopping; he’s probably watching. I pull off my fleece to allow the cool air to nip at me and chase me on.