Almost Grace

by Rosie Rowell

  I try to lift my head, but a thick crushing force keeps me down. It’s as though they don’t even see my lying here. ‘I’m awake!’ I shout, pushing against the heavy pressure, but I can’t move. Dido’s Lament seems to be pouring out of the taps: ‘Death invades me, Death is now a welcome guest.’

  Suddenly I have a thought, as intense as electric shock. It is a buzzing, a push, a heave of will. I want to be in my bed. The cold water has won again. I see myself getting up. It is more like a lunge because I feel dizzy and I grab onto the towel rail to steady myself. I climb out the bath, look around for my towel and find instead a thick nightgown. I disappear into it as I wrap it around me. My room. My bed. Under my duvet it is gloriously warm. Gracie Fields stands over me and sings the Christopher Robin song slowly and softly. Now I can close my eyes. At last I can let go.

  I’m still in the bath! I can’t sleep yet; I’m still in the bath.

  Running. Feet, breath, blood all keeping to the same rhythm.

  I am the rhythm.

  For a while I am nothing more than the blood in my ears, I am inside my body. Each impact of my trainers on the ground sends reverberations around my body, sharp ripples that spill into each other. But there is no pain. I sense it but I feel nothing. The ground I am running on is hard but I’m running next to the sea. I’m running in and through smudges of blue. It feels endless which is good because I could run forever. There is something on my back. Ah – Rory. Wow, he’s heavy. His legs are wrapped around my waist and his arms clinging around my neck so tightly he’s going to throttle me soon. His Prego-roll breath is sharp and fresh. ‘This is futile, Grace. You think you’re saving yourself but you’re making it worse. The longer you carry this stuff around with you, and the older you get, the more burdensome it becomes.’

  Really, Rory? Watch this: with a flick of my head, Rory and his blabbering mouth peel off my back with the ease of a sticky note and a pleasing shlick sound. Rory floats away over the sea. That’s better. I am lighter and stronger without him yabbering in my ear.

  Sometimes I feel so light that I leave the ground, but that makes me dizzy. I prefer the reassuring thud of trainer on the hard sand.

  Mum has joined me. Dammit – how does she keep up? And she’s smiling that saccharine smile of hers that could lead to homicide. Never once has she complained that I ruined her life, never once. Because everything’s fine, we’re always fine. No, we’re not, Mum! We’re not OK, just admit it! I was a mistake; in terms of your hopes and dreams, I was a disaster.

  What? Mum’s smile fades. Her pace slows.

  Admit it! I shout. I don’t mind! I start laughing, it seems funny.

  Mum starts falling behind. ‘Grace!’ she shouts but I don’t look back. Another layer gone, shlick. Lighter and stronger. Mum flies backwards and away from me. Perhaps she will bump into Rory.

  I am pure and strong. Nothing will stop me.

  A noise behind me makes me glance backwards. The scenery has changed. I am somewhere industrial. The blue smudges have become grey. I look behind. A car. The black car. I pick up my pace but it’s gaining on me. As it comes alongside, the driver opens his window and grins at me. He is wearing reflective sunglasses. I see my face in them. It makes me scared. There is a turning ahead. Turn, Grace. The light has changed. It’s darker and damper but I can keep going. There is no pain. The road narrows, the grey smudges on either side become buildings, the tops of them touching the sky, blocking out the air around me. Another corner. Turn. It is a narrow lane now. I can hear the car behind me. Turn again. The noise of the car is louder now, or perhaps it is echoing through the streets. How does it fit down these narrow paths? They are no wider than a pavement. The buildings are too tall; the light can’t get in. The car is getting louder. Run, Gracie, run. Another corner. Hurry. Ahead is a tall brick wall. There’s a door. Stairs leading down. You always wake before you reach the bottom. If you reach the bottom, it means you’re dead.

  This is it, then. This is the end.

  1. Get lost!

  2. Indigenous dense mix of shrub bush

  3. A little

  4. Nice [and]

  TUESDAY

  I feel hideous. ‘I’m going to be sick!’ I want to say, but there isn’t enough time. A warm pressure, perhaps a hand, presses into the base of my spine. The warmth spreads up my back. I can feel it ripple into my veins and jump-start my synapses.

  I cannot shake the sensation of flying and try to keep absolutely still. Perhaps I have left my body and am now an enlightened being. That would piss Mum off. My second name is Ariadne. Something about a string.

  My eyelids feel plastered shut. I have no inclination to try and open them – there is quite enough going on in my head already. What is that smell? People underestimate smell.

  If only I could stop the flying, I could finish a thought. Is it possible to fly without moving? I feel both very still and out of control.

  Although if I finished a thought I’d have to move on to the next one. That feels potentially dangerous. I sense shadows of bad thoughts circling just beyond. Thoughtlessness is supposed to be negative; I think it’s pretty wonderful.

  That’s right, there was a maze. String and a maze. Or is that Hansel and Gretel?

  ‘String and a maze? What?’

  A male voice? I thought I was alone. This is so surprising it may be worth opening my eyes for. Carefully. But the light is so bright that instinctively I roll my head to the side. Spook is next to me. Spook? No, that doesn’t seem right. ‘Ariadne.’ I answer his question but I’m not sure whether I’ve said it out loud or in my head. I close my eyes again. Better. Ariadne was the Mistress of the Labyrinth. She gave Theseus a ball of string so that he could defeat a monster and find his way through the maze. Then Theseus repaid her kindness by leaving her sleeping on the beach and sailing off. Ungrateful sod.

  I am so hot I would like to peel off my skin. I imagine it would come off quite easily, like a naartjie1. I’ve figured out the smell in my nose: old clothes in a black bag. Seaweed. Three best smells ever would have to be toasted cheese, fresh coffee and Mum’s perfume. Three worst smells: Rory’s office, hospital cleaning fluid and damp sports kit. The smell in this car comes pretty close.

  There is a recurring rattle. Something has come loose. It makes me open my eyes and roll my head very carefully to the side. Spook is still here; one hand on the steering wheel, his other elbow resting against the closed window. So we are driving. He coughs and sniffs, rubs his nose. From what I can see without having to move, we are surrounded by mountains. Where is the sea? It’s as if I’m not here. I close my eyes. Maybe I’m not; maybe when I open them again I will be somewhere else.

  No, I am still here. Pity. I look down. I’m strapped into my seat. No wonder I’m hot – I’m wearing my grey tracksuit pants and Spook’s jumper. That’s odd, because yesterday I was wearing –

  There is a song playing. I’m sure I know it. ‘Is that Jake Bugg?’ I ask. My mouth is dry; the words come out with the grating sound of a saw.

  Spook snorts. ‘Rodriguez.’ He does not look at me.

  ‘Sugar daddy,’ I say.

  Spook laughs. ‘Sugar Man, not sugar daddy.’

  When I open my eyes again there is a large green signboard ahead but the words are too smudged to read. I blink to sort them out but by then it is too late. The effort of focusing on the board makes me feel ill. ‘Stop!’ I say, and clamp my hand over my mouth. Spook swerves and jerks to a stop at the side of the road.

  Outside it’s hot and dry and I feel better immediately. With the act of moving I seem to return fully to my body. I lean over and try to puke but there is nothing there. I stand back up. Slowly the rest of the world comes back into focus. I can taste the earth in my parched mouth. We are in a flat, green valley. Vineyards. Mountains surround us on all sides, folding in on each other. I want to stay out here in the sunshine, in the fresh air. I want to sit down and pick up a handful of sand and rub it together between my palms, to lie down and
cover myself in the dusty earth.

  ‘Come on,’ calls Spook.

  As I turn back, I notice we are not travelling in Spook’s car. This one is a white station wagon. Unbelievably, it seems in worse condition than his.

  Spook is pulling off even before my door is properly closed.

  ‘Whose car is this?’ I ask.

  ‘Borrowed it.’

  This car is so old that it has those wind-down windows. I open mine as far as it will go and stick my hand out, to keep a hold on the outside world. ‘You came back,’ I say, turning to him.

  From Spook’s expression I could be speaking Russian. ‘Do you want to explain the empty packet of Myprodol, Grace, and the broken glass all over the kitchen?’

  I shake my head and look away. No thanks. After Theseus’s heartless desertion Ariadne went on to marry Dionysus, the god of wine. Ha! Karma.

  Spook looks at me. ‘For God’s sake, close your window,’ he mutters. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel and shifts about in his seat.

  Mountains and vineyards. The only vineyards I know are around Franschoek and Paarl, north of Cape Town. I can’t imagine any vineyards around Baboon Point. Is he taking me home? Hospital? No, no, no, not there, Spook, please. I turn to him, to talk him out of it, but his phone rings. He picks up the call and listens for a moment. He sighs. ‘Fine,’ he says and hangs up without saying goodbye.

  He rubs the side of his face. ‘I found you passed out in the bath.’

  Enough, Spook.

  ‘That was after I cut my feet open on the kitchen floor.’

  ‘You should wear shoes more often,’ I manage but my heart has contracted at his words to the point that I feel my blood stop in my veins. I turn away from him and look on the blur of passing fields. This is not the Spook I know. This is a guy yelling at me in a horrible-smelling car. Maybe going home wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

  ‘I couldn’t wake you up, Grace. When I got you out of the bath, you were shivering. Then you puked all over me.’

  I look down at my hands. Now I see the dirt wedged into my fingernails. But his words trigger nothing inside. I try to retreat back into those drifting, unfinished thoughts before Spook opened his mouth but they won’t have me back.

  ‘Do you know how easily you could have drowned?’

  ‘Stop it.’ I watch the digital clock on the dashboard, waiting for fifty-nine to flick to zero, which in turn will free the eleven to change to twelve o’clock. But it won’t move. I feel Spook’s eyes flicking between me and the road, waiting for me to say something, but I stare fixedly ahead. A lorry transporting new cars approaches us and behind it a Greyhound bus. That would make a horrible crash.

  Spook bangs the steering wheel. ‘Do you have any idea how stupid that was? Where was Louisa?’

  ‘Stop shouting.’

  ‘I thought you were dead!’ He shouts even louder. He takes a deep breath, then says in a very controlled voice: ‘Where is Louisa?’

  I shake my head. ‘She went after Brett. They had a fight.’ Caused by me.

  ‘But she was gone all night and she didn’t answer her phone.’

  I shrug, as if I’m as confused as he is.

  The next time we pass a green board, I catch the words ‘Riversdale 10’. ‘Riversdale? I thought you were taking me home.’ We are a long way from Cape Town, travelling in the opposite direction. We’re on our way to the East Coast.

  For some reason Spook finds this funny.

  ‘Not hospital, please. Just drop me back at my house.’

  ‘Not going to happen.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I have an errand to run.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Mossel Bay.’ He seems irritated with me for being here, but he brought me along.

  A few valleys later Spook looks at me again. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Fine,’ I lie. My stomach is cramping. I have no control over where I am or where I’m going. I wish I could make myself pass out again.

  ‘Drink this,’ he says and reaches down into the side pocket of his door and pulls out a bottle of Energade. It’s warm.

  I shake my head.

  ‘Grace,’ he growls.

  ‘I’ll be sick,’ I say. I’m five years old again, swaying with fever, pleading with my mum who is trying to force more medicine down.

  ‘Take small sips.’

  I do as he says, although it makes me want to cry. The explosion of sugar in my mouth is so intense that for a moment I am going to be sick. But my body lets me down. It grabs at the taste, desperate for more.

  The music has stopped. We are driving through a wide, flat valley. Long, grassy bushes line the road. Every now and then we pass a cluster of farm buildings in the distance. The mountains that we were driving alongside have shrunk to a gentle wave-like shape, a darker shade of blue than the sky. I shift in my seat to relieve my aching bum, and undo the seatbelt. I have to get rid of the jumper. Underneath it I’m wearing a white vest top. I blush as I realise he must have had to dress me. A fresh tide of nausea washes up through me. Somehow I need to manage to go for a run today. Yes, a run. Even the thought of it makes me feel calmer.

  As I turn to chuck the jersey onto the back seat I catch sight of the navy rucksack. It reminds me of something, something urgent, but I blink at it a few moments. I glance at Spook and then back at the bag. The money. The gun. What is the matter with me? How could I have forgotten? Now that I think about it, that bag is responsible for everything that has gone wrong. And everything is wrong. I am stuck in a strange car with a gun, a bag of cash and a man of no fixed address, driving in the wrong direction. Tears spill over my cheeks. I don’t wipe them away, hoping that in the silence Spook won’t notice. But there are so many of them that it becomes too hard to keep them quiet. I cover my face in my hands and sob, as if I’m getting rid of all the cold bathwater.

  Crying doesn’t make me feel any better but at least Spook doesn’t say anything. I sniff loudly. I fix my gaze on a smudge of bird poo on the windscreen and swallow back the second round of tears. ‘Why do you have a gun?’

  Spook rubs the back of his head. He stretches his neck from side to side.

  ‘Louisa says everyone is South Africa has a gun but that’s not true. No one in my family does.’ My words are met with silence, broken only by the unidentified rattle. ‘And don’t tell me it’s only for self-defence; look at freaking Oscar. If you’re not going to use it then why have it?’

  ‘I didn’t say I wasn’t going to use it.’

  ‘What?’

  Spook sighs and shakes his head. ‘There are things about this world that you don’t get if you’re eighteen and have been living all your life in a nice house with Mummy.’

  His patronising tone makes me want to hit him. ‘What happened to “I’m just a Rousseau-quoting, ocean-loving hippy?”’

  ‘I never claimed to be a hippy. Sounds like you have stuffed me into a very small box because I like to surf.’

  I turn and stare out of the window. We are travelling through an endless succession of rolling hills, surrounded by yellow fields. Each of the dips in this suspension-less car makes my stomach turn over. Every time we near the top of a rise, I cling to the brief hope that surely on the other side the scenery will change, but it never does. Despite what he says, on Sunday Spook was the ocean-loving hippy. This Spook is somebody else. Should I be worried about being in this car with him?

  At last we are approaching the coast and Mossel Bay. Giant oil refineries spread out on either side of the national road. It is funny how people associate Mossel Bay with the start of the world-famous Garden Route when its approach is so ugly. We leave the highway but before we descend into the town Spook turns at a sign that says ‘D’Almeida’. I look at him, thinking he’s made a mistake, but the fixed look on his face keeps me quiet. What is he doing driving into a township?

  The road winds slowly up a hill. Streets peel off to the side. They are lined with identical blocks of flats. Each block
has an external staircase at the front of the building. The newer buildings are painted mustard yellow, the older ones were once white. Graffiti covers the ground floor of the buildings. Washing hangs from the top floor between the buildings and across the road. The roads are so uniform that I imagine a town planner, sitting at his desk with a pencil and ruler. But in a manner that would annoy the planner enormously, boxy lean-to houses have mushroomed up in almost every free space. Some have marked out a backyard with corrugated iron walls; others are no more than shacks. Kids and dogs spill out into the street. Minivan taxis crawl up and down the road, hovering to pick up and drop off passengers. I close my eyes. After the silence and emptiness of the past few hours it is too much to take in.

  When I look again, the houses are bigger and further apart. Some of them have gardens, with straggly creepers spilling over the side of the Vibracrete walls. Spook turns into a smaller road. A few of the houses are double-storey, with high walls and barbed wire running along the top. Spook pulls up outside a high brick wall, and sighs. ‘Don’t go anywhere, I won’t be long.’ He leans back for the bag, unzips it and takes out the gun. He wraps it in a T-shirt that had been lying on the seat then leans over me, opens the glove compartment and chucks it in.

  ‘What if someone –’ I start but he’s already out of the car. He walks up a short drive, opens a solid steel gate and closes it behind him.

  I rest my feet against the glove box. Three days ago I was sitting in exactly the same position, only next to Louisa, driving through Lambert’s Bay. The street is deserted. My stomach is cramping. I sniff and feel tears close by. I lift my hand to wipe my nose and see that it’s shaking. That makes me feel worse. I take hold of my hand with the other but suddenly I’m shaking all over. No matter how far I burrow into the seat I can’t stop it. My senses are all messed up – I’m cold and hot at the same time. I sniff again and force myself to concentrate on something outside. The only experiences I have of townships are the ones outside Cape Town where we planted trees and painted murals as part of our outreach projects at school. This is different. It feels like a suburb with a township plonked on top of it. I pick up Spook’s phone and scroll through his songs for something to do. Nirvana. Radiohead. Some weird trance stuff. Jesus Christ. Come on, Spook!