Whiplash

by Tracey Farren

  That’s when it hits me.

  No blood.

  There’s been no blood for a long, long time.

  The train rocks me, rocks me like it did on the cliff with Hanif. But all I feel is sick, sick, sick.

  Never mind, I tell myself. Never mind.

  I always bleed off and on.

  I’ve got a whole story up my sleeve. I’m gonna say I twisted my ankle in my snake heels. I’ll say it happened right now, buy some ice. I’ll ask for beta blockers, ‘Something like Adcodol will do.’ The tired pharmacist is on her computer. The assistant’s counting stuff on the shelves. They miss me limp through the blue light from the stained glass, right across the shop.

  Her silver name tag says Sybil. Her blue eyes are washed out. Her thick curls have gone a bit yellow, like she’s been on the shelf for too long, in a shop where the lights are always on. Sybil looks over the top of her glasses, ‘Hello, Miss Peterson.’

  She always does it. She always shocks me. She remembers my name from a real prescription, that time I got herpes in my mouth. She comes round her counter. Can you handle it, limps up to me.

  ‘Is there anything I can help you with?’

  She’s got a bandage on her ankle, can you believe.

  ‘Uh … just some tampons. And some Adcodol for the headache that goes with it.’

  She smiles, but her eyes go worried.

  ‘It’s monthly,’ I say.

  The magic word works again. She goes to fetch Adcodol, very slow. I choose tampons, start scanning the shelves for a pregnancy test.

  A woman walks in. Same height as Sybil. Same build. Same strong curls, but they’re red. She’s wearing a long red, silky skirt, her bum’s a massive heart shape. A red stretch top with half sleeves, slung melon boobs, her arms soft at the top. Silver toe rings. Sandals, orange, with see-through beads. A long ‘Hu-llo’ to Sybil. She goes through the blue light, into the sunbeam in front of the dispensary. ‘How’s your foot?’

  ‘Umm. Sore.’

  The woman’s scalp is stained red. Home dye. ‘Why don’t you go home?’

  ‘No one to stand in.’

  ‘I’d stand all day for you, Sybil. But I’d kill the village.’ Sybil laughs.

  I find the tests. Twenty one bucks. Shit.

  Red Scalp says, ‘You should be resting. Take a turn on the Laziboy.’

  ‘Ralph wouldn’t share it.’

  A ‘hmmph’ from Red Scalp.

  On the back of the box there are squares with lines. One’s got one line, the other’s got two. I look closer. One line’s okay, two lines are bad. I peep inside. A long plastic thing, too long for my bag.

  I shove it up my sleeve. Looks like I’m hiding a flippin mouth organ. I whip it back out. Sybil’s coming back with my pills, a funny look on her face.

  Shit. I think she spotted me. My fingers sweat on the edge of the note. Just give me my pills.

  She gives my pills to the girl at the till. Limps back, mutters to Red Scalp, ‘It’s not like he beats me or drinks or takes drugs.’ Red Scalp answers, ‘Too blimmin lazy,’ but I’m the only one who hears cause the door bell clangs. A woman comes in, holding her son’s hands out in front of her. Brown hands. Pink rash. I’m out of there. Don’t give a shit about any rash or any lazy boy.

  I swallow five in the beach toilets. Shut my eyes to block out the grimy wall, school yellow. It’s in my mind, must be, cause I ease up on the spot. My nerves go on holiday straight away.

  Back at the flat, Madeleine calls me to look. The lifesaver contraption’s in the middle of the room. Noel’s stirring a plastic jug of red chemicals, splashing with his plastic spatula. Madeleine stacks more red tubes in her tiny deep freeze. Red bompies, plastic sacs of sodium benzoate. You’d think they’re flippin gold bars, she’s so proud.

  ‘Wow.’

  I think of you, Ma. Angie said you freeze fish after fish after fish. Show off your deep freeze every chance you get.

  When I go, Madeleine says, ‘Come back for a cold one.’ Sweet. Even after the pills it shoots a splinter into my chest.

  It’s not like I even asked for a bompie.

  The Monday straight after the races, Annie wakes me up. Nearly bangs dents in my door. I try open my eyes. A seagull shows off on the station roof, lifts up, shuts its wings, lands. The one with the whiplash, maybe.

  I let Annie in, collapse on the downstairs bed. Vrygrond’s far from here. She must’ve been out all night. ‘Penzance, nê?’

  ‘Nee.’

  She opens my balcony door, hooks it in place.

  ‘Ah, kill it.’

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Kill the sun.’ I shove my face in the pillow.

  ‘Luister, Tess, I came to tell you. Are you listening, Tess?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Man …’

  ‘I need water.’

  She grabs a glass, goes into the bathroom. Gives me a sopping glass. I lift my head, get a good look. Annie’s got her hands on her hips. All damped down and glistening. Shirt so white it’s cruel to my eyes. I gobble the glass.

  Where does all the water go to? Litres of water. My hair still dry, my nails still cracked. Evaporates in the wind, maybe.

  ‘I’m going to Joburg.’ Annie’s eyes are dark stars.

  I think she means for the weekend.

  ‘How come?’

  Annie sits on the bed. Takes her bubblegum out, shapes it with her fingers, ‘Darryl’s got a job.’

  ‘You going with Darryl?’

  ‘He’s been asking me for a long time.’

  ‘You said it was finished.’

  ‘He was sulking.’ She smiles, all shy. ‘He was dikbek until I said yes.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me.’

  ‘Because you always say boyfriends are bad news.’

  I nod. ‘They drop you, or …’ I lay on a look, ‘take over your whole life.’

  She chucks the gum back in her mouth, pumps her jaws.

  Shrugs.

  Annie’s lost. She’s got blue jeans on, all the way to the ankles.

  Her shirt’s got a collar with a tiny flower print. Geez, what’s cutting? I sit up, check out her shoes. White Adidas takkies.

  Brand spanking new.

  ‘Where’d you get those?’

  ‘Darryl.’

  I dunno why, but her white shoes make me remember.

  Flip, no blood.

  Annie chucks in quickly, ‘I’m paying him back.’ She hates being a take.

  I ease back on the bed.

  No blood.

  And the clinic’s closed on Mondays.

  Annie gets my glass, finds Coke in the fridge. Trillions of tiny pops as she pours. ‘We had to use his credit card to shop for Joburg. He’s broke now, but they’re gonna pay him big marcha.

  And I’ve got a job in a glamour bar.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘It’s a series called Suka. He’s the ladies’ man type.’

  ‘Oh ja?’ Like I’m surprised.

  She gives me the popping glass. ‘He thinks he’s so bok but the women don’t smaak him. He’s a lech. In the show.’

  ‘What’s a glamour bar?’

  Annie does a fantastic boob whipping thing. Grins like a hot, stage star. ‘A topless bar.’

  ‘That’s okay with him?’

  ‘He says it’s okay for now. But we’re keeping it secret.’

  ‘Oh.’ I let my silence talk.

  ‘You’ll smaak him, Tess. He’s a bird lover.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, you’re always saying, look at this bird and look at that bird.’

  Annie’s going to Joburg.

  ‘What happened to you never leaving Cape Town?’

  ‘Ag, I can’t last without him. They shoot for six months.’

  Six months. Something pulls out of place in my chest.

  ‘I’m gonna bath.’

  She gives my ankle a little pinch. ‘Okay, Tess.’

  Annie’s thinking about her man, she’s already le
ft. She pats my shin, ‘I’ll see you, my kind.’

  She’s up and gone.

  Go, just go.

  I climb the ladder.

  Suka means go in Zulu.

  I count out my breakfast lot. Wash them down. Fight back a heave. Eat some hard cheese. I run a bath, crouch next to it. Watch the water rushing. My eyes wanna cry, I dunno why. Shit. An old lech in a Zulu TV play.

  And I’m not a bird lover.

  That’s how well she knows me.

  I lie in the bath, watch my toes till I don’t care Annie’s gone.

  Annie’s stupid. It’s not like anyone’s gonna see past her tits. I mean, how far’s she gonna get in a headless bar?

  Next door, Madeleine’s singing gospel, I think. But anything she sings just sounds like grief.

  I lie there, my skin drinking water.

  Tomorrow, I’ll go see Sister Brown. Do what I have to do.

  I soak till I don’t care. Till all I wanna do is eat fish.

  I walk all the way to Shoprite for pilchards. I buy mashed, sub standard. Cat food, actually. I chow it till the last chunk. Only then do I smell that it stinks. Drop the tin from the top, clean into the bin on the street.

  I iron my undies, brush my hair till it shines. When I look again it’s turned to straw. Put on my yellow dress, ultra short, but innocent. No two ways, I’ve got to score.

  I take the bridge along the pavilion. Don’t even make it to Sunrise circle.

  A Neighbourhood Watch oke’s covering for the beach police. What a joke. The cops eat lunch while the Watch relieves them. When the Watch goes home, the cops smoke and tell jokes. Okay, there’s one fitness fanatic cop, sometimes walks to the end of the catwalk, writes a few fines for dogs off leashes. All around him, the gangsters deal.

  Neighbourhood Watch watches me walk the curl of concrete up to the bridge. Level with the sombrero roof of the pavilion hall. He’s a little oke, chubby. Blonde ponytail with a boiled egg on top. One foot up on the bench, talking into his walkie talkie like a real policeman. My yellow dress stuffs up his game. Surveillance gone stupid, cause his mouth hangs loose and his eyes go blind, like they do when a man’s brain empties.

  Nicotine moustache. Signet ring. Aftershave, smells like Axe. ‘You wanna have sex with me?’ I ask him straight.

  He blushes so the holes in his skin stretch. ‘I’m on watch here.’ But all there is to watch are perfect white gulls, catching updrafts. Two perfect black men with their trousers rolled up. Catching sea water in coke bottles for muti.

  ‘When d’you knock off?’

  Neighbourhood Watch squints at the station clock. I help him, ‘Twenty to two.’

  ‘At two.’ He scans the sea like maybe he’ll find crime in the waves. I shrug off my dress strap. Let half my bra show. A bra’s as good as a boob.

  ‘I’ll wait for you down at the bottom, near the toilets?’ I whip the hem of my dress. Flash my g-string.

  A frog sits on his voice box. ‘I’ve got the keys to the hall.’ Jiggles keys in his pocket.

  ‘What else have you got?’

  His moustache blows out, blasts a laugh. He looks out to sea.

  ‘I mean, have you got a hundred bucks?’

  Shakes his head. ‘Fifty.’ Bastard. Bargaining.

  I can’t afford to argue.

  I wait at the back door to the hall, under the brim of the sombrero. He loves being watched, the Neighbourhood Watch. Tightens his bum, pulls in his gut, struts up and down where I can see him. Points a straight arm, hard finger at some kids dumping their cooldrink cans. Ooh, hard core. Smokes with short, manly drags. Talks into his walkie talkie. Checks the bins, for bombs maybe. Meantime that ugly Merrick, Bonita’s boyfriend, moves fast to the end of the bridge. Waits for the Watch to knock off. The pickup point’s right above the beach police office. Safe, cause the cops are too slack to crane their necks. Two o’ clock, Neighbourhood Watch walks slowly to the hall. Behind him I see Merrick take a package from a kid. Take the spiral stairs down.

  ‘Merrick!’

  He jerks, faces the danger.

  ‘How’s Bonita and them?’

  He flicks a finger at his neck, whips it sideways.

  ‘What?’

  His anger’s like a head butt. ‘I do’wanna talk about Bonita.’

  ‘You fighting?’

  ‘I do’wanna hear about Bonita.’ He goes off, score in his pocket.

  The wind bats his words my way, ‘I’ll fuck her up.’

  Neighbourhood Watch chooses a spot among a whole stack of trestles. Uses his spit to speed him. Gross. Kills himself not to grunt. No need, cause every sound is sucked up by millions of metres of royal blue curtain. Neighbourhood Watch is a pap broek. The slightest sound, he jumps off, rolls himself up in the curtain. Leaves me bent over, bum to the hall. There are birds up there in the roof. Seagulls meeting in the high point of the hat. Halfway to heaven, but they still make me knuip. I eye the sign to the ladies, the little chick with the padded bum and the umbrella.

  Every bang, every swish, Neighbourhood Watch hides in the folds. A window in the wind, wings against a rafter. For God’s sake get finished.

  Shame, he can’t do it. He’s too scared of being bust. He might refuse to pay so I hop on top, eleven knee bends. I watch a gull pull a piece of French loaf off a window sill. Jab at it, one eye watching our stunt. Eleven knee bends and he’s shuddering, his stumpy fingers clamped over his mouth. Even then, watching the hall with wide eyes, ready to fold into the blue.

  I wash over the basin, loosen my bra. My nipples feel grazed, I dunno why.

  Neighbourhood Watch waits for me, fretting to leave. But it’s like the seagull’s waiting for me, too. It takes off from a chair with a piece of bread the size of its head. It flies top speed, right through the foyer, straight for the glass double doors in the front. I squeeze my eyes shut. Wait for the smash.

  The smash doesn’t happen. Bloody clever bird drops to the floor, waits like he’s first in the queue to get out.

  ‘Have you got keys for the front?’

  ‘Ja, but we’re going out the back.’

  ‘Just let the bird out.’

  The seagull flies up in the air, sails back to the chair.

  Neighbourhood Watch dangles the fifty. I take the money, don’t snatch. The gull flies into turbo, races again for the glass. It swoops through the foyer arch, straight for the glass.

  ‘No-o!’

  Silence instead of a crunch. It stares through the glass, waiting.

  ‘Ssssh man. Are you mad?’

  ‘Let me let the bird out.’

  He finds the right key. Shrinks into the curtain. I stalk the double door. Pray the bird doesn’t panic, start thrashing. Polite, it shuffles sideways. My fingers slip on the key, my feet damp in my sandals. The door opens easy. The South Easter’s been crouched, hiding in the hall, cause now it tries its best to blow me out. The bird paddles into the wind, grips its bread tight. It catches an air wave, up towards the mountain, up towards my flat.

  I chuck the keys. They skid along the foyer floor.

  I give in to the wind, blow out the front door.

  Bonita’s at the beach, sitting against the women’s change rooms. Staring straight ahead. Merrick’s next to her, his knees up. I don’t know what he did with that score, cause neither of them are stoned. Just furious. Bonita’s lips are clenched together, she’s staring a hole in the broken old Empire. But Merrick’s stare’s a black stare, a tunnel to terrible memory. Don’t ask how I know, I just know.

  ‘Hi. You finished for today, Bonita?’

  Her glance at me is friendly, considering she’s just been slicing brick.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m not going again.’

  ‘She’s not finished yet.’

  ‘I am.’

  They stare ahead. A battle happening somewhere in the air.

  ‘You take my money, you force me to work.’

  ‘I look after the money.’
/>   ‘Where’s it then?’

  ‘I keep it safe.’

  ‘That’s what you said yesterday. And what did the girls eat?’

  She looks at me. ‘He smokes white pipes, this ou.’

  I nod like she’s telling me he grows his own tomatoes.

  Hit the quickest road to my flat.

  I end up behind that Red Scalp from the chemist. She walks fast down Melrose Road, clicking her fingers like she’s walking to a beat. Each step unhooks one half of her bum. A little dog runs out, its liquorice nose sticks to her toes. A pack of kids play soccer, shout in African. A stocky boy dribbles a lemon against a car tyre, his back to his attackers. A skraal kid with long legs tries to get it, but the boy passes, laughs, shoves Long Legs out the way. He falls into Red Scalp. Red Scalp gives him a mock klap. Asks, ‘What happened to your ball?’ They show how it went high in the sky, into the yard of the broken Empire.

  A white Citi Golf pulls up, idles in the middle of the soccer game. A kid dropkicks the lemon over it. A tanned oke in white tennis clothes leans across the seat. Says to Red Scalp, ‘Come for a swim.’

  Another car pulls up, gets stuck behind. Red Scalp looks back at a purple cottage, a low wooden gate with a curvy women carved in it. In the front garden, a big lemon tree. Tiny birds flash between the leaves. She grins, gets in. ‘I’ll swim in my bra.’

  The soccer match parts for the car. Slazenger rackets, a cage of bright tennis balls in the back. Long Legs gets the lemon tied by skill to his feet. The Citi Golf stops again. Red Scalp holds a ball out the window.

  ‘Wally, please leave my tree. So I can make lemonade.’

  The kids cheer. Someone swipes the battered lemon into the gutter. Its yellow skin is weeping juice from its beating.

  I quickly walk away from the lemon. From the disturbance of birds, their wings spread like flowers between the branches. I dunno why, but I think of Amanda. How she must have cried before he poked out her eyes.

  Tuesday, I’m ducking down the stairs, little Josie comes up, Bonita’s youngest kid.

  ‘Hi,’ I say. Wait for Bonita. Expect to see her come up the stairs.

  ‘Where’s your mom?’

  Josie shakes her head.

  ‘What you doing here, girl?’

  I try herd her back down the stairs. I’ve got to get to the clinic, get tested.