Whiplash

by Tracey Farren

  I watch my small hands, snatching, clutching, just missing Fatima. She buckles in the wind, a crippled kite. She falls to the water and floats with the others, lost girls in lead water. I am naked and small, but I churn through the mud. I run in the water. It’s ice cold and the mud thrashes thick with sand sharks. Under each foot, a slippery fit. I grab for the pages, but they suck under. It’s my fault, I’ve gone and woken the sand sharks. They flick and jerk, whip the water, bury the girls. Down there, I know I can never get to them. I’ll never save them. Graham’s head is in his hands, his elbows big on the arms of his chair. He heaves, cries like he’s retarded. The sand sharks jab at me as I stand there, cut my legs. I keep my scream in. I wee in the water, shit scared. Useless.

  Noel breaks in from the balcony side. Shakes me awake. He grabs me, pulls me towards the bathroom, tryna show me something. He crawls under the bathroom door. I’m not in the mood to play.

  I try go back, but he shouts from the other side, ‘Mama!’

  He unlocks the bathroom door. Lies on his stomach, stares through the crack under the shower door. Shouts something about his mama.

  The water’s rushing inside. I tell Noel to mind out the way. Lie on my stomach. Steam boils on the floor. Water tunnels along a soggy wall. The water is pink. Oh, God. I see in my mind, Madeleine peeled like a plum. A razor. Oh my God, probably an artery. I see her crumpled in the shower, gushing red.

  I run up the stairs, shove on Henrique’s door. Fall into loud TV. Henrique can’t hear me. I wave my arms, run to switch it off. Change my mind, grab him like Noel grabbed me. In the passage I shout, ‘Madeleine’s locked in the shower! She’s cut! She’s cut!’

  I lie flat, point under the door.

  He hurtles past my head. The sound of an elephant hitting a tree as he rams the door with his shoulder. No use. He punches the shower door, shouts. Doesn’t wait for an answer. This time he kicks.

  Madeleine blinks in the shower, pink fingertips held up in fright. Her braids all gone. Her red dress stretched at her chest, half her nipples peeping. Streaming red at her ankles. Running red dye into the gutter.

  Madeleine hoofs Henrique, a hard one so he drops. She screams, snarls, slaps and slaps.

  When she stops, I turn off the taps.

  She wasn’t bleeding. She was just grieving.

  Geez.

  A week after that I meet Lennie.

  It’s late. I’m on my way home from the road. I walk along the pavilion bridge cause it’s still hot, hot and it helps to see the sea. Down on the beach, dark brown mamas wash up like whales. In huge D-cups, I’m talking humongous. Tent panties, totally see-through. They let the sea take them, drag their hands in the sand. Laugh their heads off. Carry on like it’s Christmas.

  That dream keeps bugging me. I used to swim for hours as a kid, till one day I saw dark shapes. Shit, suddenly I saw that the sea’s full of cruising, diving, whipping shadows. It’s swirling and murky like an ugly, scared night. I thought, forget. I’m not going back in. Not past my knees.

  It was nothing like Ange, who stopped swimming cause she got fat. When I left home she must’ve eaten for me, cause she got podge, refused to swim. Wore hot clothes, long skirts and sleeves.

  ‘Chubby bums,’ I called her when I came home one time. Eesh, she got cross. Attacked me with her nails, scratched my shins. ‘Graham! Get your daughter off me!’ I shouted.

  You know Angie’s temper always drops as fast as it comes. She said sorry, begged me to stay one more day.

  ‘I can’t man Ange, I’ve gotto get back to work.’

  Fifteen, I was. My work was to be beautiful for my boyfriend. It was Dave the DJ then, I think.

  There’s a clock on the ticket shed. Five to five. There are two girls left on the supertube. String bikinis. One runs head first up the stairs. The other one takes dainty steps, holds the hand rail. It’s Josie and Sharonne, Bonita’s girls. The other sunburnt riders trot out the gate, wrapped up in towels. But Bonita’s girls stay, milking the tube.

  The rubber band guy’s in his kiosk. A skinny ponytail, stick legs folded, feet locked on his knees. Staring at the air above the pool’s twisting water. The skinny Buddha, as usual, slacking on the job. Some Vrygrond kids hook on the fence, watch the girls. One unlatches from the wire mesh, flicks his buddy with a towel. Whips a sore stripe on his leg. A towel war breaks out. A little one cries. Then the big ones make like they’re running away, leave the small ones, laugh at their panicked shrieks. Like a loose troop of neighbourhood dogs, they roam their way home.

  I go down the stairs, watch the girls land in the pool. They take the last bend, legs out straight. Josie flips onto her stomach, flicks onto her knees, arms in the air. Mouth wide open, taking in gallons. She bombs into the bubbling pool, disappears. Sharonne sits tight, hands flat on the fiberglass. Mouth clamped shut, chin up. She slips in, light as a leaf, stretching her neck to keep her head out. She walks to the edge, her hair still dry.

  ‘Where’d you get the money?’ I pluck at my wrist. Josie points at the rubber band guy, water sticking to her like varnish.

  ‘He’s Mom’s friend.’

  ‘Oh.’ I nod.

  Friends in high places. A perk of the job.

  ‘How much?’

  His head’s on his hands against the fence. His pretty nose through a hole. He asks the faithful old question but I swear I think he means the supertubes.

  ‘Twenty rand for the day.’

  His head snaps my way. ‘A day?’

  Slowly my brain grinds back into action. ‘No.’

  He laughs softly at my mistake. His front teeth are missing, the fashion here on the flats. A glimpse of gums and two sharp canines. His other teeth are small, white. He’s got a history book kind of head. Something about the way his head dips at his temples, super fine. Cheek bones hang his face nicely. I cut the crap. ‘How much’ve you got?’

  His skin’s so thin you can see the veins just under it. Small muscles tighten at the edge of his eyes. His nostrils pull tight, then stretch. His jaw muscles play like strings. Ag, as a man, pretty sweet. But not much of a man.

  Plus he’s got a popout belly button. I see when he lifts his money out of his pants. Counts it, all discreet.

  ‘Eighty seven rand.’

  That’s halfway between a blow and a screw. I check him out. His eyes seem black, but they’re the darkest blue, the sky when the sun’s on the other side of the earth. Faraway eyes, not the stabbing eyes I get from men, eyes that sosatie my body parts.

  That’s how things started with Lennie. Me confused at the supertubes, and his popout belly button.

  His baggy pants scuff the ground. His white shirt a bit brown in the creases. I get in, chin up for Bonita’s girls and the last of the people playing putt-putt. A dark blue Mini, painted with PVA. A skinny gear stick. It’s like a toy car, low on the ground. Clean inside. He taps his thumbs on a thin steering wheel. His breath runs out with a catch. He smells of soap, plus a touch of curry. ‘The police stables okay?’ he asks at the fruit seller’s lights.

  ‘You a cop?’

  ‘No, no. I’m not.’

  A pyramid of oranges. Some cut open melons. R9,99.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Lennie.’

  I don’t think he’s dangerous. But what if that walking under water look switches to greedy? Greedy to see the whites of my eyes. See my skin nicely sliced.

  He takes the turn off to Capricorn Park. One side’s all cleared for building that hasn’t happened. Just ducks walking the new tar roads. On the other side is pure bush. Past that, the police stables.

  He pulls up outside two long white buildings. No one around.

  The stamp of hooves on cement, some huge heads turned to us. Black eyes, jaws stop chewing. One snatches at no man’s space, ears flat, its teeth flippin flesh cutters. Neighs louder than a police siren.

  ‘I’m shit scared of horses, hey.’ In case he fancies a screw among the hooves of a restless thoroughbred.
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br />   He pulls a foam mattress from the back of the car. He’s got a reserved suite this end. Clean straw, hardly a whiff of horse shit. A hole in the wall, covered with mesh. Air conditioned accommodation. Some chopped wood in the corner, half covered with canvas. A cement trough in the shadow.

  ‘What do you like? Just here, lying down?’ I go onto my knees, push him gently onto the mattress. Pat his pockets, not obvious, check for weapons. Something solid, what is it? Maybe a closed knife? I stroke it. It’s not smooth, not metal. He’s not talking at all. Breathing like I’m about to do open heart on him. I take it as excitement. Fine, I’ll be home with fish and chips, maybe some Tassies before six.

  Sheez am I wrong. I only realise when I fish his dinges out of his zip. No amount of sucking or teasing can get it to work. All it can do is twitch. And flop. Twitch. Flop. Like a newborn thing, it can’t stand on its own.

  Eventually I catch it half hard, dress it in rubber. I slip it inside me, my shirt buttons undone, my bra propped under my breasts to try send blood to his thing. He holds my boobs, squeezes them. Just a twitch.

  What a woes.

  ‘What do you like?’ I ask him.

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  Easy going oke. Easy going flop. I pull up his shirt, tickle his nipples with my tongue. Bony chest. A few stray hairs. Not much of a man. I try pinning his hands behind his head. Move. I sweat, work like a pig to get momentum. It’s like dancing with a flippin jelly fish. He shunts his breath out, goes from caramel to instant pudding purple, he’s trying so hard.

  Another, ‘What do you like?’ and his thing flops out. He stares at my vagina like it’s a spider. I slap his penis, try revive it. Soft smacks with my open hand. That’s when he laughs. A gurgle, unexpected from such a serious oke. I kill my own giggle, ‘I’m still keeping the money.’

  My record so far is about ninety percent in under twelve minutes. Often I make them put their hands behind their heads and they can’t take the suspense. A cheap round, usually. But not with this oke.

  I pop a mint. Pull out a wet wipe. Usually I don’t clean up right in front of the jump, but this guy’s not counted. I keep an eye on him for violence.

  ‘Can’t say I didn’t try.’ Wipe the skin between my fingers.

  His pants are back on, his laugh is gone. ‘It’s not your problem.’

  He leans against the stable door, looks out. I wanna get into the wind, check if the Muizenberg mountain’s gone dark. But I’m trapped in here with a flippin sad man.

  ‘It’s …’ He watches me clean under my nails. ‘… since they found out I couldn’t make babies.’ God, his eyes go a bit glassy.

  ‘Shame.’ I mean it, but I’ll mean it more if he gets out the way and lets me out.

  He fiddles the straw with his foot. Sounds shrunken, ‘I can’t even do it with my wife.’

  A relief to hear. Makes me say all the nice things I can think of. ‘Don’t stress. At least you’re trying, man.’

  I scoot to the car. Limp Lennie hangs back, goes to see one of those long necked jaws. It’s in the stable right at the end, two empty stables inbetween. Pulls that thing out his pocket. Feeds it to the horse. It’s a bloody carrot. The horse swings its head up and down, demolishes it. When it’s finished it shoves at him with its head. He turns his back and the beast rubs its whole long face against him. Hard, so he topples. He staggers, stays up. It cheers him up, cause his face breaks into light, like the sweep of a lighthouse. It catches me before it vanishes.

  On the way back I talk to wipe out the whole limp business.

  ‘Is that your horse?’

  ‘No, it’s a police horse. But … they don’t use it anymore.’

  ‘Do you ride?’

  ‘My father was a horse trainer.’

  The silence makes me lus for my Syns.

  ‘We used to play horses when we were kids. Imaginary, you know? Me and the girl from over the road.’

  Fat Sanette. The pile of gravel on her driveway was our mountain. I copied her, my hands out in front, cantering. Dumi went on foot. His imaginary falcon swooped above him. When he held his arm out, it gripped onto his wrist.

  ‘But real horses, uh-uh. I had a bad experience.’

  ‘Did you fall off?’

  ‘No. This girl near us, Kerry, she had a white horse.’ I don’t know why the shit I’m telling him this. ‘One day I went to the beach, she was picking these big ticks off the horse’s bum.’ He laughs. But it’s not funny. So he shuts up and waits.

  I came up from the sea in my bikini. There she was on the grass, with her white cart horse. Picking them off with her bare fingernails. Dropping them into a matchbox.

  ‘What you gonna do with them?’

  ‘Burn them.’

  The ticks were big as butter beans, easily. A tight, plucking noise as they came off. Freaky. I hung round, watched with some of the tanning girls, all baby oiled. Some surfer boys. The horse arched its tail and blew a stinky wind. We all fell round moaning, holding our noses. I felt like I was part of the gang. By accident Kerry knocked the match box with her foot. The pile of ripe ticks scattered on the grass. I ran, screaming. Not thinking they’re useless with their fat blood bodies and their stupid short legs. Forgetting that ticks can’t sprint.

  A mistake.

  The boys flicked them back in with a stick. ‘It’s alright. You can come back.’ I waited there on the hill, laughing. Tryna make out that I screamed on purpose. I had to go back.

  As I got close they charged me. Pulled at my bikini. I jumped away, screaming. One boy held me. The other one emptied the box in my pants. Cold, thin skins, waving legs. They were gonna go inside me, into my fanny, blood sucking blood bags going in.

  But all I say to Lennie is, ‘Some kids stuffed a whole lot of ticks in my pants.’

  He nods like he’s sorry. Like it happens sometimes.

  I sat down to stop them going in, to stop the tickling, the march of black blood. I screamed so loud, people ran up from the beach to see. Holiday makers, Transvaalers tryna get me up, get me onto my feet. I bumped along on my bum, screaming louder as I felt them explode. I wet my pants. Kerry got onto her horse and trotted out of there, low on the horse’s neck. The boys hid up a tree, in case the police came. No police came, but an Afrikaans auntie in a full costume, those ones with a tutu, saw the blood on my bikini bottom. She said, ‘Toe maar, toe maar. All girls get it.’ I fought like hell when she tried to touch me. When her husband tried to take over, I let go an ugly, ripping screech and scratched him. He quickly sat down on the bench. The tannie coaxed me slowly to the showers, lead me like a crazy horse. Shouted orders to her hubby. Told him to stand with his back to us. Hold up a towel. She turned the shower on full blast. She nearly died when she saw the shells of the ticks washing out my pants. Away with the water into a heap of brown leaves.

  They took me home in their car. You said, ‘Shame,’ Ma, in a voice that wasn’t sorry. You smiled a half smile that wasn’t kind. You said, ‘You’d better not tell Graham. You know how berserk he is about ticks.’

  But Gladys was pissed off, big time. She gave me some of Graham’s Coke and swore about those boys, called them fucks in Zulu.

  I pile in the Syndols, that time after Lennie. I dunno what’s happening, but everywhere I go, my past keeps breaking on my head like a foamy. It’s like I’ve sprung a little leak and I can’t seem to fix it. Not even with pills.

  End of Feb, me and Annie go to the races.

  The day of the Met, I wake up with a woozy gut. My nipples feel rubbed, a bit raw. How did that happen? I have toast and marmite, take my pills. Blowdry my hair. Put on foundation for a change. I can’t face perfume. I check out the noise outside my door. Henrique and some oke are battling to get a contraption into Madeleine’s flat. Looks like a lifeguard’s tower. Noel skips around like a fox terrier, yapping. Madeleine’s in a yellow skirt, a brilliant blue crossover top. Her hair’s combed straight up, makes her double the height. She’s got packets of white powder clamped un
der her arms.

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘I am going to make bompies.’

  She holds up a packet. It’s got a sticker that says sodium benzoate. The other one drops on the floor. Noel picks it up, sticks it back under his mother’s arm. ‘I only need the syrup.’ Bompies are frozen suckers. Sugar water, iced.

  Geez, some people flog their bodies for bucks, some sell flippin frozen water. Fine, I think, but what will she eat?

  I stick my smart shoes and my dress in a bag. Hit the road in shorts. On my way out I see they’re hauling her contraption up from the road with a rope.

  Annie and me scored a special invite. The horse race of the year, free food and drinks. It’s a flippin pity that Annie’s given up, cause we could coin it if we were clever. Still we’re gonna party.

  Watch us.

  I catch a taxi to Vrygrond. Walk up the new tar, past some kids burning polystyrene in the bush. They run into the black smoke, run away. A crowd of Vrygrond mongrels run with them, rumbling and swerving with high happy tails. There’s a white pony grazing on the side with an icecream tub stuck on its foot. But it’s the back foot, too dangerous. As I walk past it shies sideways, crashes into the Port Jackson. I don’t blame it. I’ve seen the kids, how they chase the horses. A little brown foal, slim as paper, takes off after it.

  Some kids speed down the new white line on the chassis of a shopping trolley. Two big kids jump off, drag it to a stop. One of the tiniest tips onto the tar. They all ask me for food-clothes-money-for-electricity in a never ending sentence. Watch my backpack like they’re waiting for a flippin eclipse of the sun to grab it and run.

  ‘Uh-uh. I’ve got nothing.’

  But they still crave my backpack. I say, ‘I’ve got nothing for you,’ and they stop following.

  The old Annie’s back. Already raving when I get there. She’s in her dad’s lounge, chucking one of his beers down her throat. I dunno what he puts in it, washing powder, maybe. A bit of Omo, I think, cause you shoot to the top, float there. But the hangover comes early. If you don’t get something else quick, you’re dirty water, down the drain.