Whiplash

by Tracey Farren

  ‘Are you mal? We jus got here.’

  ‘We’ll pay you to leave.’ An offer from William.

  ‘How much?’ She says it too loud. Next to me, some plump profit guy suddenly stops complaining about aeroplane pastrami. And William’s wife is watching. Burt begs, ‘For God’s sake, please just leave.’

  ‘No thanks.’ Annie picks up a marinated mussel. Lets it dangle. Asks loudly, ‘So Burt, whaddoes this remind you of?’ Pastrami tries to work out Annie’s question. Roars when he gets it.

  William’s wife blushes for all women.

  I try distract Annie, ‘What’s pastrami again?’

  I know Annie, you don’t take her head on. And don’t ask her to leave.

  Annie thinks hard. ‘It’s a meat or a pastry. I conremember.’ She holds two fingers up to the oke who laughed at her joke. ‘I worked at Pick n Pay for two weeks,’ she slurs. ‘I wore a panty thing on my hair. I learn’d allthenames. But I conremember.’

  I try again, ‘So what horse do you like?’ I go down the programme, ‘Look. Pastiche. That’s nearly like pastrami.’ Annie ignores my stupid talk. She asks the oke, ‘You looglike a boss. Are you a boss?’

  Turns out he’s William’s boss, I swear.

  I notice a dark guy watching us. A sideways kink in his nose. I check him out. Camouflage green eyes. Graceful, wears his suit like a man doll. He’s talking to a pale woman, one of those miracles of Africa. Where does she hang out? Museums. Afternoon shows? Maybe walks her shaved dog deep in the forest. Sheez. She’s telling him she lives in Rondebosch, renovating Victorian, or something. She says, ‘I’m Jason’s wife’s sister.’ But Camouflage’s watching Annie chat up Pastrami. Pastrami bends towards Annie, rocks. Twitches his lips, dimples his chin, battles to keep out of her cleavage. Annie’s slurry chat a weird coincidence when you think of what happened afterwards.

  ‘A fren of mine started doing gym, daai weights and he en’ed up having a moerse heart op.’

  I know the story. The ‘friend’ was a jump.

  ‘They cut him heretohere.’ She draws a knife line from her boobs to her fanny. ‘His heart was nearly three times bigger than yoursormine.’ She rubs her breast. ‘Haai, it was a big lump, the blood an’ goeters were tangle’up in a knot.’

  Pastrami winces, digs his fingertips into his chest.

  Annie pumps air weights. ‘If he didn’ start pumping, he would never have foun’out.’

  Pastrami tips forwards some more so his big lips nearly suck onto her forehead.

  ‘He would have vrekked,’ she claps loud, ‘like that! Onthejob or som’ing.’ Annie shoves a cracker into some liver spread. Drops a splodge on her red dress.

  The big guy wobbles forward and licks it, I swear.

  Ooh, shit.

  I try out a few chickpeas. They taste like paper. When I look again, William’s hanging on a tent pole, desperate. Burt’s hopping from foot to foot, watching Annie lead Pastrami towards the mobile toilets. And Pastrami’s really not digging his heels in. Burt and me, we both know that she’s not just showing him the way. Annie’s cracked, I reckon. Back on the job.

  A surgeon knows when a limb must come off. Burt talks to the ticket guy, a young oke in black and bright white, looks like a porter in a larney hotel. Burt sics him on Annie, I see his mouth say the word, ‘prostitute.’ Then Burt hurries back to William and the two of them bend their knees, drop a notch, blend in. Annie, Pastrami and the guard hold hands, make a blind line. The guard’s between them, keeping them apart like they’re mating dogs. Then he spins Annie away, clamps her arms down. Pushes her towards the tower, the way we came in. Annie starts swearing, but I can tell she expected it. She doesn’t kick or bite, just the usual, ‘Jou ma se poes! Why don’ you sen us both out, hey? Sen him too!’ The banker laughs himself silly, like it was all just a joke.

  Some bony, brown shoulders jerk near me. Must be Pastrami’s wife. She stumbles a step, scuttles back. She tries to smile, but it just won’t sit.

  I keep max eye contact on my way out. The chicks can shove their diets. Their flippin sleeveless tennis. I stare down the saggy lidded men. I send one single smile to the woman who told me about the aubergene dip. Even if it made me feel sick.

  We leave like proud soldiers, Annie and me.

  And we hook up with an army general.

  The dark guy who was watching Annie stays downwind, catches up with us at the betting hall. By now my food’s begging to come up. I’m saying, no way, you stay.

  This building’s made of stress, I swear. A flippin monument. A big brick building held up by panic. Paper all over the floor like a truck’s overturned. Camouflage’s eyes hard on us. His smile is gentle grit. I operate fast. Pull a pink one out my sling bag. ‘Pastiche is gonna win.’ Grin at Camouflage. It’s nearly all I’ve got to my name. Annie checks him out, all blurry, her drunken smirk flippin miles from a sexy look.

  Camouflage joins us. Me and Annie place a bet, fifty each. I go for Pastiche, whatever it means. Annie goes for Honeysuckle. ‘Honey-suck-me,’ she says.

  We find a spot to watch. Next to us, a man with big, looped curls, a bulb nose. A gnome. I bet he’s got turned up toes inside his twotone shoes. His suit looks waterproof. Green polyester. Staring through the grimy glass. He’s got that swollen skin, pores made all big by the brandy glass.

  Sounds like they’re auctioning off the horses outside, the way they shout over the microphone. The commentator shouts, ‘FeistyLadyisofftoagoodstart … GrandBannertwonecksahead … Honeysuckle’scomingfrombehind …’

  Annie just about wets her pants. ‘GO HONEYSUCKLE, GO!’ She roars so you can hear the gravel in that little body. ‘GO HONEYSUCKLE!’

  ‘FeistyLady’srunningthird,

  MaroonMoonmakingwayforSerendipity … Serendipity’s takenMaroonMoonbutHoneysuckle’s keepingherlead, Honeysuckle’sbreaking away …’ He foams on in his funny language, more about Honeysuckle.

  I dig into Annie’s shoulder, dead excited now. I think that squeaking might be me. It’s all nonsense now.

  ‘Honeysuckle,somethingorother,Honeysuckle,somethingoroth er … Honeysuckle …!!’

  ‘HONEYSUCKLE!’ Annie’s jumping up, I’m pulling her down. Hugging her. ‘Honeysuckle won!’ Annie hugs Camouflage. Polyester claws at his head, chucks himself down on the ground, sobbing or snarling, I can’t tell. Scrapes his gnome’s nose on the floor. Everyone looks away. Gives the guy space to have his nervous breakdown.

  Geez, terrible to see the brain snap like that.

  But suddenly Annie’s shouting, ‘It’s a fit! It’s a fit!’

  Camouflage shouts something to Annie. Annie sits on Polyester’s shins. Camouflage operates like a flippin paramedic. Fast, he is, calm. Grim as he shoves a stack of race cards in Polyester’s mouth, rolls him on his side. But Polyester vomits the race cards out, plus bits of ham. The sick shoots up my throat, I shove it back. But then Camouflage wipes the ou’s mouth with his sleeve, goes down on him. Starts blowing in his mouth. Oh, God.

  I run for the toilets. Vomit. Hide there. Hide from Polyester fitting, swimming in race cards and sick. When I peep again, a thick crowd’s sprouted. They bend over the Polyester like flippin weeds in the wind. First Aid’s arrived with a stretcher. Someone’s brought buckets. Polyester’s emptied his bowels right through his pants.

  I stay in the toilets, pray the guy dies.

  When my stomach feels okay, I scoff my lunch time lot.

  It turns out it was a massive stroke, not a massive tantrum. They carry him off covered up. I hear one of the First Aid guys say into his radio, ‘It was a good try … An ex-general. Israeli.’

  I think they mean Polyester, then I click. Camouflage.

  Annie stands in line, collects her cash. Even with the pills, my nerves are shot. It feels like someone’s been filing my teeth. And the commentator seems to be saying, ‘moneymoneymoney’ at the scene of the death. Camouflage got his cuffs stinky during the stroke. He takes off his jacket, hooks it on a finger. I watch him w
alk out. He drops his jacket in a rubbish bin, keeps walking.

  Me, I’m glad he died. It’s better to die than be towed to the toilet. Sit in a wheelchair, the curtains closed to see the screen. Watch cooks baste meat on TV, cops shooting crooks, while the flies buzz above you. Give me sudden death any day. At least the oke didn’t end up like Graham, sucking spaghetti up one side of his mouth. Counting the trains past the house.

  Annie asks me, ‘Why didn’t you help?’

  ‘My stepdad had two strokes.’

  Annie’s all comforted by her new money. She holds the notes to her heart, ‘Let’s go home.’

  We’re picking our way through the cars when a black Porsche slinks up. It’s the Israeli behind oneway Ray Bans. In a helluva fancy tank.

  He’s got a townhouse in Bantry Bay. A turquoise sea, the cruel, cold Atlantic. It’s three in the bed and the general said, ‘roll over’. That’s when I roll all the way out the bed. Tell them, ‘I forgot, threesomes make me skaam.’ But it’s the anal sex I wanna miss.

  All we found out is that he likes it from behind, he swims a kay every day at the Sea Point swimming pool, and he’s divorced with a daughter.

  It must have been his weekend off.

  In the photo in her room, his daughter’s got bouncy black hair and light, desert sand eyes. I climb into her little bed. Try forget Polyester. One second standing up, next he’s a frothy fit. He was lucky enough to die. Graham wasn’t so lucky. He stuck around, turned to old fruit. All pulpy inside.

  The first stroke was on his afternoon shift, flippin driving the train. Lucky someone hit the brakes. Angie told me on the phone.

  She said he was furious that day. Freaked out before he went to work. She said she was there with little Levine, checking on you, Ma. You were on your back as usual, with galloping cancer. Ange was in shock so she kept telling me stuff that confused the picture. She said you’d ordered books through the post for Levine. One was a book of paper dolls. Levine was bratty, she needed a sleep. She kept whining to Graham, ‘Grandpa, cut them, cut them. Cut my girls!’ Graham said he was busy, he had to get to work. Angie went out to the vegetable truck cause the maid said there was nothing in the house. Levine started crawling up Graham’s railway socks, shoving the scissors at him. Saying, ‘Cut them. Cut my girls.’

  ‘Ask the kaffir girl, man, I’m gonna be late.’

  The maid took the scissors and cut the dolls out. Told Angie from the stoep what to buy. Levine started howling cause she wanted her Grandpa to cut the dolls out, not the maid. Graham lost it, kicked the gate open on his way out. ‘Jesus Christ! I’m sick of you useless women!’ which made Levine howl even louder.

  They were the last proper words they heard him say.

  On the phone to Angie the words, ‘Oh my daddy, oh my daddy,’ cried in my mind. I felt like a baby. My tears were so sore, water squeezed from concrete. I swallowed most of them. Like a good girl, good and clenched inside.

  ‘Can I speak to Mom?’

  Angie whispered, like she couldn’t believe it herself. ‘She’s in the kitchen.’

  ‘What’s she doing in the kitchen?’

  Still like she’s dreaming, ‘Making fishcakes.’

  In the kitchen, for God’s sake. Patting fishcakes into a ball.

  I spoke to you a few weeks later.

  ‘What’s gone, Mom, his left testicle?’

  ‘Tess, sis, man. How can you joke?’

  But I’ve always joked, Ma, especially when it’s not funny.

  You told me his short term memory’s gone. But it sounded to me like the side that died was the side that said ‘Useless woman’ and ‘Get the kaffir to make me lunch.’ He always punished you, Mom, talking like that. You were always scared the maid would hear. You needed your maid, you see, cause you needed your bed.

  I asked Graham once why he spoke so ugly to you.

  ‘I’m tryna shock her out of bed, Tess. Give her a wake up.’ Well, Mom you woke up after his stroke. It’s like you got what he lost. You got up quarter day, half day, then full day, Ange said. But even when he was limping round a bit, you stayed up. You plucked your eyebrows. Pulled out the old rods. Bought new line. Cut rock bait off the rocks.

  Ange said you fed Graham fish, whether he liked it or not. I mean, he’s a red meat man.

  Ange said the second stroke was her fault. She said her labour made her ugly. Two in the morning and she refused point blank to leave Levine with Graham. She made you all pile into the car. Bazil with his crutches, you and little Levine. Her baby tryna find the flippin light of day. You all went in the Peugeot to Addington hospital. You left Graham at home alone.

  Ange said five minutes before the baby shot through the gap, Graham had a massive attack. She felt so bad cause when she was in labour and they came to pick you up, Ange shouted at Graham, ‘I don’t trust you! I don’t trust you!’

  And all he did was offer to babysit.

  Ange cried on the phone. Blamed herself for the big one that put him in his chair, made his face weird. I haven’t seen it, but you said he looks like a basset. There was something glad in your voice.

  ‘Even his eyelids, Tess. You know if you hang down over a mirror?’

  ‘Ja.’

  ‘Like that.’

  I stopped phoning home after the second stroke. God, the whole family drama, it was too much. Angie killing herself with guilt.

  And I didn’t have to keep lying about my life, ‘Oh, I’ve got a job in a shop.’

  I have one of those horrible dreams in the Israeli girl’s bed. It must be Polyester, messing with my mind. In the dream, Graham’s stuck on the coach of a train.

  A metal shaft right through his middle. His chest pumping, shrinking. Sweat collected between his breasts, wetting his curly ginger hairs. Under that, clean metal. The shaft’s got straight sides, the corners are curved. His stomach’s gone but his hips are still there. The tips of his boots scrape the railway gravel. We’ve all come to see him.

  Graham stares ahead like he’s watching TV. There’s no blood in sight, but his face’s so white it’s like he’s been halaal bled. He talks out the side of his mouth. ‘I can’t see my willy.’

  ‘Like Mr. Binneman,’ Angie says.

  Graham used to joke that Sanette’s dad was so fat he couldn’t see his thing.

  You’re all dolled up, Ma, like you’re going to a dance. You’re in your pale blue penguin blouse with its flapping tails. Lots of white highlighter on your eye bones.

  Ange is acting like a baby, but she’s about sixteen. She’s in a long skirt, no shoes, climbing on everything.

  ‘Keep still Ange, stop shaking the train.’ I feel Graham’s pain, which is deep and cold. The metal as heavy as a ton of period blood.

  Ange jumps on the train’s axle, bangs a door open and closed.

  ‘Ange, stop it! You’re gonna hurt Dad!’

  Ange giggles and runs between the seats, her bum in the air like a baboon. I feel the stainless steel through my middle, blood floods the back of my throat. Angie babbles, jumps up and down, shakes the train.

  ‘It hurts, Ange!’

  You check Graham’s trousers. You say, shocked, ‘His willy’s missing! Find it, Tess! Find it!’ You give me the job. I hunt under the train. I look on the seats of the coaches. You watch me, all urgent, like there’s a train coming, ‘We’ve got to find it!’

  I hiss at Angie, ‘Help me Ange, this is serious!’ But Angie pretends to be a puppy. She chews on Graham’s shoes, hanging there on the gravel. Graham’s eyes bounce off her head, get back to his TV.

  I wake to the sound of a train, a dry blast, bearing down on us. I wake with a burning throat, a burning heart, look straight into the sand eyes of the Israeli girl. My spine tick-ticks, echoes the wheels of the train. For a while I still worry about Graham’s thing. I worry that you need it, Ma.

  The siren stops. Starts again.

  It’s a fog horn or something, blasting across the bay.

  The Israeli says he’s got swimmi
ng squad. Hustles us out, goes off in his Porsche. Leaves us on a stinking rich street. Everyone staring at our Met outfits. Annie’s all happy today, like she knows where she’s going. She’s in some kind of hurry. We catch a taxi with people from the Hout Bay squatter camp, tryna get to their families on the flats. Some of them going to the suburbs to work.

  ‘Seven days, seven days,’ says this African nanny, rubbing her eyes. On her way to babysit some white kids, so their parents can chill on the seventh day.

  We’ve gotto take a train from Wynberg. I’m desperate for clean, ironed underwear and a proper dose of pills. I had my last two Syns this morning and it’s nearly midday. While Annie’s choosing some hairy peaches, I sneak off to the chemist in Station Road. Think they’ll dispense without a saak, cause the poor people catch trains, the ones who can’t pay for doctors. The pharmacist sounds Dutch, I think. A string bean. Hair hanging stringy, like a drummer in a band. Adam’s apple like a cyst. I ask him for Adcodol, cause I’m out of bucks. He questions me.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I had a car accident.’ I point at my skull. ‘Terrible headaches.’

  It’s my Met dress that makes him suspicious.

  ‘For how long?’

  Geez, the prick. ‘Twenty four hours, sometimes. All day and night.’

  ‘When was the accident?’

  How many of those braces behind him would fit on his knobbly neck? I could fit three, turn him into an Ndebele.

  Annie’s shouting, ‘Tess! Tess!’ The train’s whining to leave.

  I feed him, ‘Two thousand and two,’ but the guy shakes his head.

  Bastard refuses me.

  Annie’s already on the train. Everyone’s watching me.

  ‘Now everyone’s staring man, Annie.’

  Annie looks round the coach. ‘Hemel, Tess. So what? What’s wrong with you?’

  My hands are sweating, I’m turning into some slimy species.

  The sun is killing my eyes. I pull my knees up. Lie my head in the shade.

  ‘Don’t talk to me.’

  The train rocks me, rocks me.

  I worry about the dream, worry that I didn’t find his willy. I woke up too soon. Funny there was no blood, though, no blood in the dream.