Almost Grace

by Rosie Rowell

  Spook looks at me. ‘You mean me? You’ll find people do all sorts of jobs you’ve never heard of.’

  We reach the hotel. What few shops there are, are shut. The centre of town is deserted apart from a cluster of kids kicking around a football in the middle of the road. Although some shops close on a Sunday in Cape Town, it’s never empty. This is almost creepy. Baboon Point must be one of the few towns left in the world that still shuts down on a Sunday.

  Spook walks towards the cash machine. Alongside it, outside the liquor store, a row of men sit along a bench. Apart from the odd comment, they are silent and unmoving. A little further away is a clump of teenagers leaning against the wall. Everyone seems to be watching and waiting, but for what? Someone bumps against me. I turn as a tiny woman, no taller than my shoulder, pushes past me. She is wearing a pair of pink and black leggings and what could be a child’s dress. Her head is covered with a grubby doek8 and her face looks a hundred years old. She marches up to one of the men on the bench and starts yelling at him. But he doesn’t even look at her, let alone reply. Eventually she turns and walks away.

  ‘Imagine living and working here every day, all year around.’ Perhaps it is due to the parched wind that has taken over today, but there is no sense of the wild and untamed coast among the locals. They seem listless, left behind by the rest of the world.

  Spook pulls out his wallet. ‘Don’t be so judgemental. Take the owner of the booze shop. Maybe he is one of the world’s greatest philosophers. He levitates when there’s no one there.’

  I snort. ‘He’s more likely to spend all day watching sport while he rests his beer on his obese belly.’

  ‘Wow! Don’t mess with the hungry chick!’

  I turn away as he enters his PIN. The wind makes me feel itchy. Out of the corner of my eye I notice a car pulling away from the stop sign.

  ‘Spook!’ I tug at his arm.

  ‘Hmm.’ Spook is staring at a mini print-out and tapping the edge of his card against the machine.

  ‘It’s that car again.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The car we saw in town.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Spook’s eyes focus.

  ‘I think so. Maybe not.’

  Spook is quiet for a moment. He looks around. ‘I need to make a call.’

  Spook is leaning against the blue rim of the payphone booth. I watch him from a few metres off. Who is he talking to? He’s constantly shifting – from one foot to another; looking down, then up at the sky; fiddling with the green Telkom sign embedded in the metal rim of the booth. Is Louisa wondering where we are? Or is she so immersed in her get-along-gang that she’s barely noticed?

  In an abrupt movement he replaces the receiver and walks back to me. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘I’ve never used a payphone in my life.’

  ‘There are a lot of things you haven’t done,’ he replies, looking up and down the road.

  I make a face at his back.

  A minivan taxi approaches. It is a buttercup yellow, advertising Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut. There is a boy leaning out of the window, scanning the quiet roads for potential customers.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Spook calls.

  ‘Beach Road,’ the boy replies in a bored voice.

  ‘Cool,’ says Spook.

  The boy opens the sliding door and sits back in the front row seat to let us pass. All the while the driver has not quite come to a stop.

  Spook ushers me into the van. The grey plastic-coated seat covering has been patched with green adhesive squares the size of big bottoms. ‘What are we doing?’ I ask.

  ‘Your ankle’s sore,’ he replies, as if that answers my question. This is Spook’s life, I think, picking up arbitrary taxis going in random directions.

  We’re the only passengers apart from two big ladies in the back seat who stop talking briefly as we sit down. The window next to me is a cloudy smudge from a previous customer’s hair gel. I think about drawing my curly wave pattern on the window but decide against it in case the boy tells me off. The women behind us return to their conversation, still with their eyes on us. Louisa’s mum would have a fit if she knew Louisa took taxis with me. But then she has nothing to do all day but cart her children around.

  The driver turns and mutters something to the boy. He doesn’t respond, but starts counting the change in his money belt.

  ‘Fifty,’ he replies to the driver, who grunts in reply.

  The boy is about ten years old. He’s wearing jeans and a red hoodie and has a cigarette tucked behind his ear. He’s chewing gum aggressively.

  ‘Do you go to school?’ Spook asks him.

  The boy looks up at Spook. He blows a big bubble and pops it. I imagine he’s a street kid, a glue sniffer.

  ‘You’ve got to go to school if you want to end up a rich man,’ says Spook.

  ‘Like you?’ I say. The boy laughs, which makes me pleased. Spook’s tone annoys me. His generation of middle-class white South Africans say ‘Eish!9’ and ‘Sharp-sharp!10’ They dance to Freshlyground and are very critical of the lasting legacy of apartheid in their parents’ words, but they don’t have any real black friends. At least for my generation interracial friendships aren’t a project.

  One of the women calls out, ‘Thank you, driver!’ The van stops abruptly and the women get out. The driver speaks on his phone, then turns and says something to the boy. ‘We’re turning around,’ the boy says to Spook.

  ‘We asked for Beach Road, bro,’ replies Spook.

  The boy shrugs. The driver turns and looks us up and down. I hand the boy eight rand and scuttle out of the van.

  ‘Cheeky shit,’ says Spook as the van drives off. ‘But it’s not far.’

  ‘The beach?’ I ask.

  ‘No, the ’Loper.’ Spook is indicating a worn sign, which points us in the direction of ‘The Strandloper11 Pub’. Underneath someone has added ‘warm beer, lousy food’. He looks pleased with himself.

  ‘I haven’t heard of it,’ I say.

  ‘Like I said, there are lots of things you’ve not done. We need a beer.’

  ‘A warm beer,’ I correct him.

  ‘Want a ride?’ he asks.

  I nod. My ankle throbs like a silent siren. I hadn’t mentioned it while we were walking and I can’t help feeling happy that he’s noticed. I reach for his shoulders and jump up, instinctively wrapping my legs around his waist.

  He folds his arms around them. It’s a simple action; necessary to stop me falling off but his arms are like a pair of spark plugs to my nervous system. My shorts barely cover my arse in this position. His arms are wrapped around my whole thigh. I swallow and hold on to my left wrist with my right hand to avoid touching his chest. ‘Giddy up,’ I say to cover my embarrassment.

  ‘Jesus, you’re bony,’ he says, ‘Relax. Come on, make yourself floppy.’

  Short blonde hairs sprout sideways up the nape of his neck. They look bleached against the caramel colour of his skin. I want to sink my lips into the curve, not to kiss it, but to taste such beautiful skin. Then he’d stop, lower me to the ground –

  ‘That’s better.’ he says.

  A couple of cars overtake slowly, making a wide berth around us. How can it feel so normal to be hanging out with someone twice my age? Yet I can’t think of anyone I’ve felt this comfortable with. My mum and her yoga friends are always going on about connected souls.

  ‘Do you believe in reincarnation?’ I ask.

  He stops and adjusts his grip on me.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say.

  ‘Your hipbone is hurting me,’ he says. ‘Reincarnation? No. It’s too complicated.’

  ‘Soul mates?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Love?’

  ‘Not really.’

  I laugh. ‘Redistribution of wealth?’

  ‘Strongly.’

  ‘Assisted suicide?’

  ‘I believe I’m going to dump you on the side of the road if you keep asking me questions.’

 
I laugh. ‘What makes you get up in the morning?’

  ‘Skinny bitches staring at me.’

  ‘Ha ha,’ I say. Without thinking I kiss the back of his neck. What the hell am I doing? This is not me. Once again I feel out of control. I can feel his body react to the kiss. I blush furiously and bite my lip but after a moment he strokes my leg. It is an awkward movement; it makes me think of kissing boys outside at school discos.

  After a couple of blocks he stops. ‘Here we are.’

  I slide down, too quickly, and land heavily on my ankle.

  He takes my hand to steady me. ‘Careful,’ he says and I laugh. It seems all I can do is laugh and blush. He holds my hand until he realises what he is doing, then lets go.

  The Strandloper sits behind a clump of milkwood trees. There are three cars in its gravel car park. ‘See that Datsun bakkie?’ Spook nods his head towards the roughed-up blue pick-up truck in the corner. ‘That car has been in that exact spot for three years.’

  Suddenly I feel too young and he too old. ‘Won’t people think it’s weird seeing us together?’

  Spook laughs. ‘Nothing is weird at the ’Loper.’

  Wooden stairs, cloaked in the overhanging milkwoods, lead up the side of the building. A barefooted girl about my age is sitting on the bottom step. She turns and looks at us, but seems too stoned to manage to lift her lids all the way. She looks as though she’s been sitting there since last night.

  ‘Sisi, you need to sleep,’ says Spook as we pass. She giggles.

  The entrance to the bar is at the top of the stairs. Through the doors one can vaguely make out a three-sided bar at the back and at the far side of the room a couple of pool tables. A glint of sunshine catches my attention and I follow it onto a large sun-drenched deck. ‘Wow!’ I breathe. It has the most extraordinary view of the bay. White sand stretches as far as you can see; the late morning sun against the clear sky makes the sea appear dazzlingly blue.

  ‘And you haven’t heard of this place?’ asks Spook, watching my reaction. He leans slightly into me as he points to a rocky outcrop on the near corner of the beach. ‘See that swell a few metres out – that is the best longboard break in Southern Africa.’ Spook continues to describe the break. The words mean nothing to me but the rhythm of his voice reminds me of the lapping water this morning. ‘Most of the scars on my body are thanks to this coast,’ he finishes.

  I follow him back past the long wooden tables and benches and a smattering of Sunday drinkers, feeling the fizz where his skin touched mine. Stop it, Grace!

  Inside the gloom is momentarily blinding. The air has been settled here for a long time. It smells of old men and cheap tobacco.

  The bar is lined with rubber beer mats and two enormous ceramic ashtrays.

  ‘When you said institution, I thought you meant in a good way.’

  ‘Ha!’ Spook rubs the back of his head. He places his hands on my shoulders. ‘Consider this an important day in your education.’

  There is the snap of a fridge door and a grunt. A clipboard and pen appear on the counter top, followed by a thickset, balding man. He glances at us, then turns and shouts at the swing doors behind him. ‘Sherry!’

  The doors part. Sherry is wearing a Lycra leopard-print top stretched over her large breasts. Her brown hair is in a tight perm.

  ‘Yes?’ She addresses Spook, yawning at the same time.

  Spook takes his time. He looks back at the man, who has resumed his stocktaking. ‘Is that your dad?’ Spook says in a loud whisper to Sherry.

  She laughs.

  ‘Watch it,’ the man grumbles from behind an aluminium fridge door.

  ‘Are you old enough to be serving alcohol?’ Spook continues.

  Another man, old and curling in on himself, shuffles up next to us. Sherry nods at him and reaches for a pint glass. She places it under the Castle Stout tap and pulls the lever, and returns to Spook. ‘I’m old enough to be your mother.’

  Spook laughs. ‘That’s OK.’

  I move away, pretending to examine the photos that cover the wall next to us. Most of them are of big men with their arms around each other, girls kissing, or Sherry pulling faces. I half expect to see Spook grinning out from one of them. You’re losing it over a guy old enough to be your dad, I tell myself. Pull yourself together.

  ‘Is Marvin around?’ I hear Spook say.

  I turn. Sherry sniffs and itches her ear. ‘Haven’t seen him.’

  ‘OK,’ Spook replies. ‘No probs.’ He nudges me with a bottle of Black Label. I look at it dubiously. One beer is the equivalent of three slices of bread, more or less. When last did I eat three slices of bread? I’d rather eat the bread than drink the beer. In my mind’s eye the slices become warm, spongy doorstoppers, with a gooey mixture of butter and marmalade dripping off the sides.

  ‘I asked for tequila but she said you looked like trouble,’ Spook says. ‘Do you want to shoot some pool?’

  ‘It’s not really my thing,’ I say, trying not to grimace at the sour barley taste.

  ‘Good,’ Spook replies and hands me a cue. ‘I like winning.’

  The man with his pint of stout settles at a nearby table and makes no secret of watching us. I take a shot. ‘Ha!’

  Spook raises an eyebrow.

  ‘Beginner’s luck,’ I say.

  ‘Let’s hope so.’ After his shot, Spook steps back. ‘Thank goodness they don’t have darts here.’

  I laugh. He catches my eye across the table. I bend forward to line up an easy shot.

  Spook copies me, as if measuring my chances from his side. He studies my face, which makes my nose itchy. ‘Do you look like your old lady?’

  ‘What?’ I stand up and rub my nose. ‘No. I look like my dad. Apparently.’ I lean back to take the shot but the balls jitter in my vision and I miss.

  ‘Fuck,’ I straighten up. ‘Why do you ask?’

  Spook is grinning. ‘To put you off.’

  ‘Boet12!’ calls the man from the table. ‘Don’t you feed your chick?’

  We look at each other. ‘Only when she’s good,’ Spook replies, holding my gaze.

  The man has a throaty laugh. ‘She must be a naughty girl.’

  Spook drinks three beers to my one. After two games, both of which he wins, he wanders back to the bar and starts chatting to the manager. Do I join him? He seems to have forgotten me. I study the cue, aware of the old man watching me. I rub chalk on the end. When I look back at Spook, he’s settled on a chair. There is nothing for me to do, so I walk outside and sit down at a table. The day has ripened into a perfect heat. The milkwoods shield the deck from the wind but their sweet, almost rotting odour pulls at my stomach. It feels like an emotion. I pick up my phone to take a picture of the view, but all I see in the sunlight is the reflection of my face frowning back at me. Come outside, Spook, follow me out here.

  A half-empty packet of chips lies open on the table. A seagull lands on the edge of the table and looks at me sideways.

  ‘Shoo.’ I flap my hand in its direction. Instead it hops closer, keeping an eye on me. ‘Go away!’ I reach over, scrumple up the packet and stuff it down the umbrella hole in the middle of the table. ‘It’s gone, you see! It’s finished!’ I shout at the seagull and find myself crying.

  The week after my mother came in I stood just inside Rory’s office. ‘You should have told me you were going to get my mum in.’

  ‘Have a seat,’ he replied. Instead of sitting down I stared at the books on shelves. Two hundred ways to fix kids.

  ‘That was a betrayal of trust,’ I said.

  This upset him, I could tell by the startled look on his face. ‘I’m sorry you see it that way. I’m trying to –’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look out for you, help you make the right choices next year.’

  ‘And when did I ask you to do that?’ The words were out before I’d thought them.

  Rory looked at me. He seemed sad. He swallowed and clasped his hands together. ‘Grace, I’m not your frien
d,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m a guidance counsellor, that’s my job.’

  The sun is directly above, pressing down on the top of my head. I close my eyes, tilt my head up towards it. Something brushes my foot. It’s the seagull under the table, pecking at the packet of chips.

  I was rude. I said something like, ‘Don’t flatter yourself.’ I should have simply walked out. After that he seemed to behave as if someone was watching us. He would conduct our sessions as if he were reading from a script: ‘I’ve talked to lots of girls like you who are struggling with their body image.’

  ‘I’m not struggling with my body image.’

  Rory’s face suggested that he disagreed. ‘What would you say you’re struggling with?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I snapped. ‘This is who I am.’

  At the same time the more distant he became, the more I would say things I didn’t necessarily mean. One day I walked in with the words: ‘My mother is scared of me. I’m her real-time horror film.’

  Rory didn’t say, ‘Now that’s not true,’ or ‘I’m sure she loves you very much.’ Instead my words hung about us in the air, the sound of my voice unable to find an exit in the poky office.

  ‘During the day I pile up things to tell her, but when she walks into the room and I see her eyes, it makes me mean. Mute and mean.’ The words came out in a rush and just as quickly there was nothing left to say. One day I asked him the one question that had been on the tip of my tongue since I first walked into his poky room. ‘So what is wrong with me?’

  For a moment the old Rory came back. He looked horrified. ‘Grace, there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re wonderful.’ Then he blushed and cleared his throat. ‘But you’re struggling at the moment with the changes in your life.’

  He wouldn’t let go of the idea of that stupid centre for teenagers ‘who are not coping for whatever reason but are in no ways sad, hopeless weirdos’. ‘One visit, please,’ he kept asking, ‘They have a Thursday afternoon group. I can even drop you off after school.’

  The building looked like a large Victorian house on the outside but as soon as you walked in it smelled of instant coffee and paper and hospital cleaner. There were noticeboards in what was once a large entrance hall with Fire Evacuation Procedures and Weekend Emergency Contact Numbers. As soon as Rory left me at the front door, I knew I’d made a mistake. I followed the receptionist up a flight of stairs into a large room. It had a blue carpet and long windows. Slatted office blinds scissored the afternoon sun. The rooms had kept their original decorative cornicing and plasterwork on the ceiling but the central fitting had been removed and replaced with fluorescent tube lights. ‘Fuck you, Rory,’ I muttered under my breath. In the middle of the room sat eight kids and a staff member in a circle. They all seemed to burrow away from each other into the hospital-issue armchairs. Most of the afternoon passed in silence or mumbled responses to the woman’s questions. There was only one other white person there – he looked like he could be a friend of a friend. He answered her questions politely. Towards the end of the session she asked him what he was feeling. He smiled and stared at the floor. We all knew that he didn’t want to speak but the social worker kept digging about for something more. Finally he shook his head, then looked up at her. His face had changed – it looked hard and old. His knuckles were white and blotchy red. ‘I feel so angry I could kill somebody.’ I knew then I could never spend three months in an institution where the truth slipped out so randomly.