by JT Lawrence
Kirsten replays their interaction in her head: the shadows in the basement, the shock, the foetid warning, James throwing the key off the bridge.
‘I guess sometimes it pays to be paranoid,’ says Keke.
‘What do you mean?’ asks Kirsten, dry-mouthed.
‘Well, just that, you know, she knew you wouldn’t keep the first key.’
‘She said keys. She said I’m sending you extra keys, plural.’ She shakes the envelope even though she knows it’s empty.
‘Maybe she didn’t get around to sending the other one,’ reasons Keke, ‘you know, before she stuck her head in the oven.’
‘I don’t understand,’ says Kirsten.
‘I’ll explain it to you,’ says Keke, taking the letter to the compost chute. ‘This lunatic lady didn’t know fantasy from reality, and she for some reason decided to drag you into it.’ She is about to throw the note away when Kirsten jumps up.
‘Don’t you dare,’ she says, snatching it away.
‘Listen, Cat. She was a delusional schizophrenic. She killed herself. Surely that’s the end of this conversation?’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘You have got to be joking. They’re watching you? Doomsday?’
Kirsten thought Keke understood her Black Hole but clearly she doesn’t.
‘She is dead, Keke. She said that they would kill her, and now she’s dead. She believed in this enough to track me down. Approach me. She wasn’t even leaving her flat to see her shrink anymore, but she came to see me. I think I at least owe it to her to see whatever this key unlocks.’
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a familiar blue-and-white striped jersey (Cobalt & Cream). It doesn’t make any sense to her. It takes her a few moments to catch on. That’s James’s jersey. It should be on James, or at home. Their home. She walks towards it, picks it up, smells it. Marmalade.
‘What is this doing here?’
‘Kitty,’ says Keke, ‘I was going to tell you. I just wanted to give you the letter first.’
‘Fine, then, I have the letter.’
‘James was here last night.’
‘What?’
‘He’s worried about you.’
‘Why? What is there to worry about?’ She knows the question is disingenuous.
‘He says that you’ve been having a rough time. Obsessing about your parents—’
‘He used the word ‘obsessing’?’
‘Said you’re not sleeping. That you haven’t been feeling well. Haven’t been yourself. In denial about all of the above.’
‘What did he want you to do about it?’
‘He asked me to keep an eye on you. He said he knows you tell me things that you don’t tell him.’
‘He wants you to spy on me? Tell him what I tell you?’
‘He wants me to make sure you’re okay.’
‘Make sure I don’t stick my head in an oven too?’
‘Well, yes. I guess that would be first prize. And he asked me to... discourage... you, from investigating any of this... what-what. Your parents. The crazy lady. He just wants what’s best for you. You guys have been together for what? Eleven years?’
‘Thirteen.’
‘A lifetime. He said you’re pushing him away. And he’s worried that you might do something... risky.’
‘Fuck.’ She sighs. ‘Am I out of control? I don’t feel out of control.’
‘That’s what you said when you went off chasing pirates.’
‘Which I won awards for. Which launched my career.’
‘Kitty, no one respects you as a photojournalist more than I do. No one. That story was cosmic. You deserved every award you got. But you almost died.’
‘Well, that’s an exaggeration.’
‘Cat, you almost died.’
‘Okay, but that was different. I was young. Reckless.’
‘So you’re less reckless now?’ Keke laughs.
‘Hello? Yes! I’m practically a housewife. I mean, look at me.’
‘The day you become anything close to a housewife I will personally deliver you to the Somalis.’
‘Keke, I have a fucking OvO app on my watch. I can tell you the actual minute that I ovulate.’
‘Marmalade is right, you are out of control. What’s next? Hosting crafternoons?’
‘Ha,’ says Kirsten.
‘Look, lady, I told your better half I’d watch over you, and I will. But I’m behind you all the way with finding out about your parents.’ Keke opens the freezer and brings out the bright red box that she keeps as a staple especially for Kirsten. She pops some waffles into the toaster and pushes down the lever.
‘So, what do we do next?’
Journal Entry
27 January 1988, Westville
In the news: Guerrillas open fire on a police vehicle in Soweto and injure three policemen and a civilian. The first reviews are in for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ which debuted last night on Broadway.
What I’m listening to: Pop Goes the World (the babies like it!) Men Without Hats
What I’m reading: Bill Cosby’s ‘Fatherhood’—hilarious.
What I’m watching: The Running Man with Arnold Schwarzenegger
P went to the nursery today and bought us a few trees and plants. He’s trying to make the house as homely as possible for us. I hope he is not missing his old life (his wife).
I’ve never really been interested in gardening but we worked a bit together today—I just planted some flowers and watered, really—and I enjoyed it. (Petunias? Pansies?) I think I’ll spend some more time in the garden. It’s a nice break from taking care of the twins.
They are doing really well. Me, less so. In the beginning I didn’t mind the sleep deprivation too much but I think it’s building up now. It is starting to impact on my mood, and my memory. And my day-to-day functioning: I do ridiculous things like put the teabag canister in the fridge. The other day I answered the front door with my shirt unbuttoned! I don’t know who was more embarrassed, me or the neighbour! My God I would do anything for a full night’s sleep. Amazing what we take for granted! Sometimes I just get one of the twins to sleep and the other one starts crying and wakes up the other, then the other way around, and I just want to sink to the floor and cry.
They are both good eaters. Thank God. Sometimes I feel like I’m a walking, talking (leaking!) boob. Sam is a frowny, focused feeder, who goes in with closed eyes and gets the job done. Kate, always hungry, starts off quickly but then takes her time. She stares at me with her big slate-grey eyes and I hope that she can feel how much I love her.
They have very distinct personalities, even at this age. Sam is serious and independent and seems to always be thinking about something, working something out in his head. I’d love to know what babies think about. And Kate is always smiling and likes being with people. They seem to get on with each other, too, which is great. Hope it carries on that way!
Sometimes strangers stop us to look at the babies, say how cute they are, ask who is the ‘oldest’, say they look like me, or if P is with us, that they look like him.
I tell myself every day how lucky I am. I look in the mirror, at my pale skin and the dark circles under my eyes, and smile. I’ve learned to put on a good smile.
Chapter 12
A Good View, Too
Johannesburg, 2021
Seth is sipping a coffeeberry shot at his local barista when an Echo.news story flickers on his tickertape. He clicks to listen to the audio version, which automatically streams to his earbuttons.
In breaking news, William Soraya, South Africa’s gold medallist sprinter and media darling was this morning severely injured in a skycar accident. Soraya, known as ‘Bad Bill,’ who is no stranger to adrenaline pursuits (or front-page news), was flying the new Volantor StreetLegal plug-in hybrid car as a publicity stunt for the corporate, who are ‘deeply distressed’ about the accident, and have begun an intensive investigation.
‘We have
tested and re-tested this new model and were 100% certain that it was safe to fly. We have no idea what could have gone wrong, but we will find the reason behind this terrible tragedy,’ said Volantor spokesperson Mohale Mhleka.
Despite the low number of uptake, the fatalities due to skycars and hover-cars are numerous and on the rise. Various groups are lobbying for the skycar to be banned, including a 2 000-strong protest outside the Union Buildings this morning, with a further 6 000 citizens adding their presence online.
‘Look, it’s something we’re going to have to get right,’ said Minister of Transport Solly Ngubane. ‘We mustn’t shy away from technology. We must embrace progress. When motorcars were first introduced there were also a great deal of accidents. This episode was unfortunate. We have to take a hard lesson from this, look forward and make this mode of transport the safest we possibly can.’ In the mean time, Ngubane has promised a task team to launch an official enquiry, and committed to flying his own Volantor every day for a month, to prove his faith in the product.
‘Last year Soraya made news for breaking the national record for both the 100m and 200m sprint, as well as for his notorious partying, womanising, and more than one incident of road rage. He was also accused of ‘resping’ or ‘respirocyting’: injecting robotic red blood cells to improve his performance, but was cleared of the charge after undergoing vigorous testing. Ironically, he may now undergo respirocyte treatment in order to speed up his healing.
Soraya is in the ICU of an undisclosed private hospital. He has broken bones, including both tibulae or shin-bones, and internal bleeding; his spinal cord is swollen, but intact. His PR manager says that his condition is serious, but stable. As the minister said today: ‘The hearts and minds of South Africans everywhere are with William Soraya, and we wish him a speedy recovery’.
Fuck, thinks Seth. He had always kind of identified with Soraya. They were the same age. They lived a similar lifestyle, although Seth preferred the shadows to the limelight. He gets that fluttering cold feeling again, almost like a premonition that a similar fate awaits him. He shakes himself out of it. He has got to pull himself together, up his game. Put his plan on fast-forward. He sends Fiona a bump. Acts cooler than he feels.
SD> What are you wearing?
FB>> LOL! Naughty. *blush*
SD> Send me a pic.
FB>> NO!!
SD> I want 2CU.
FB>> In meeting, in meetings all day. Yawnerz!
SD> Take 1 under the table. No 1 will eva know.
If he can get prudish Fiona to sext him it will be a very good sign. It would mean that—apart from getting to see her knickers—she is, to a certain extent, under his spell.
FB>> LOL I can’t!! Very NB meeting. Boss is presenting w/Serious Face.
SD> Killing me.
She goes quiet for a while, and he thinks she’s probably put her phone away to concentrate on the meeting. He pictures her, sitting up straight, blushing slightly, just-sharpened pencil at the ready, nodding sagely at her fellow colleagues. But he’s wrong, and his Tile buzzes with an image.
Yes please, he thinks, picking it up and sitting back into his chair, admiring it. A chocolate brown lace affair. Teal trimmings. Excellent. A good view, too: she would’ve had to open her legs wide to take it. Despite not finding her particularly attractive, he feels a twinge in his pants and moves to adjust himself.
Thundercats are go.
Kirsten is at her apartment, touching up the aquarium pictures, when James comes home. She is relieved to have a break; her eyes feel scratchy, overworked. She saves the huge 4DHD RAW TIFF file that she has been working on and is about to shut down when she feels a warm hand on her back, then another on her chest. She looks up, smiling, but the smile is wasted on James.
His mouth is on hers; he snaps the cover of her Tile down. His hand moves to her right breast; her nipples harden. She begins to stand, but he puts his arms underneath her and picks her up, carries her to bed. Throws her down. She laughs, reaches to unbutton him, but he stops her, pushes her back. She can tell he is angry with her. There is rare passion in his face, but it’s shadowed with anger. This is going to be bossy sex, one of her favourites.
He looks at her while he takes off his belt, as if he is going to spank her with it, but then lets it drop to the floor. Kirsten feels heat trickling inside her thighs, her stomach. Her hand travels to her open zip to touch herself but James bats it away. He wants to do all the work. He pushes up her shirt and guzzles the tops of her breasts, above her bra, then yanks the lace down and sucks her erect nipples. She feels his teeth, his hot mouth on her skin, closes her eyes, groans as the warmth builds.
He pulls off her jeans, her white cotton panties. She wants him to lick her, would do anything for him to put his warm tongue on her, knows she would come in a second if he did. But, no, this is her punishment, and he is showing her who’s boss. He grabs her around the waist and turns her around, so that she is on her knees, facing away from him.
She wants him inside her so badly that she wants to shout, but holds it in. Agony, bliss. He slaps her butt, gently, then harder, sending orange vibrations (Sunset Sex) through her pelvis. She almost comes, but he stops in time. She wants to beg, but doesn’t. The cresting becomes unbearable. A whimper. She bites her own shoulder.
James, relenting, enters her from behind. She comes immediately, her spine curling, her muscles contracting around him. Feels as though the bed is swallowing her. Before she finishes he begins thrusting into her spasms and she cries out, her body half crumpled. He grunts, breathes deeply, thrusts harder, deeper. Put his hands on her. Again her body is seized, stiff and then soft, as she melts into the next rolling orgasm.
FB>> Hey, good news.
It was a bump from Fiona.
SD> All yr meetings hve been called off & U free 2C me?
FB>> LOL, no, been promoted.
Seth smiles. Just as planned, but it feels good that everything is on track.
SD> See? U shld send me pics more often. Promoted 2 what?
FB>> Head/Marketing at Waters. Hydra. Eeeeek!!
SD> Wow. Well done, sexy thing. Mind-5.
FB>> Sooooo happy.
SD> Meet me in the red stationery room in 10min 2 celebrate?
FB>> *blush*
SD> I’ll make it worth your while.
A moment’s silence.
FB>> CU in 5.
Afterwards, Kirsten still tingling with pleasure, they spoon, naked, on their bed. She sighs. It’s not often she feels sated like this. He rubs her neck, her back, her waist. His hands tell her that the anger is gone and now there is only tenderness. God, in this moment she feels so connected to him. Nothing else matters but his warm hands on her, the damp bedclothes, their nestled feet. If only the moment could last forever.
Journal Entry
3 February 1988, Westville
In the news: I don’t know. When I look at P’s newspaper the words all swim before me.
Not watching, reading or listening to anything. Have the concentration span of a gnat. When will the babies sleep through the night?!
Need. To. Sleep.
But now there is more than just sleep deprivation. There is a darkness.
A nothingness. Am being swallowed whole.
Chapter 13
Messiah Magic
Johannesburg, 2021
Kirsten waits for James to leave for the paediatric clinic in Alexandra before she pulls out the envelope from Betty/Barbara. While he tries to save the world she’ll try to, well, save herself. She flattens out the note on the desk in front of her and tries to decipher it.
Doomsday. D-day. Apocalypse. Armageddon. End-of-the-world. She’s never been good at this hellfire-and-brimstone thing. While everyone else in the classroom was learning about the cheerful trio of Christ, Mohammed and Buddha, she had been staring out of the window, wondering why no one else saw what she saw, felt what she felt.
A school religious counsellor once tried to tell her that her Black Ho
le was the absence of Jesus’s light, God’s love, and if she were to take the righteous steps and be saved then it would disappear, just like that. Messiah Magic.
Kirsten’s eyes had rolled so far back in her head she almost lost them completely. Later, with his warm hand on her back, he had instructed her to stay behind after class, with a look in his eyes that told her that if she did her life would never be the same. His handprint still tingling on her skin, she had been first out the door when the bell rang.
She holds the note to the light, hoping to find a clue. Turns it over and over in her hands. Suddenly she feels ridiculous, trying to make sense of a demented woman’s ramblings. She looks at her Tile. Her Echo.news tickertape flashes with new stories. A man gunned down fellow shoppers in a Boksburg mall, killing five people and injuring three. A(nother) municipal worker strike, as if our streets don’t stink enough.
The usual spate of muggings and hijackings, some fatal, some just inconvenient. A flaming crucifixion in Sandton Square, courtesy of The Resurrectors. Funny, that they call themselves that, when they do the opposite. Jesus’s light, my foot. They also cover the small spat that Keke told her about the day before, exaggerated by graphic pictures of gaping knife wounds, and a convicted rapist taking the government to the Constitutional Court for ‘enrolling’ him in a Crim Colony, or PLC.
When the government instituted the Penal Labour Camps the rest of the world was horrified. Concentration camps for criminals! Shouted the international headlines. New Apartheid for SA! and Underground Crim Colonies! It was in the beginning of the New ANC rule—when they still had balls—and they were dead-set on implementing the programme despite the international pressure not to.
They move prisoners from their crowded, dirty cells to various high-security farms and mines throughout the country where they set them to grind. They learn skills and earn wages, with which they pay their food and board, and have mandatory saving schemes that will be released to them, with interest, at the end of their sentences. The money that is saved by emptying the prisons go to prisoner rehabilitation and university fees.