Stupid jealousy punctures me. ‘See, you don’t need me.’
‘We need you.’ Her brown, burnt eyes still tryna spy a way into mine.
On the radio, they go, ‘… six hundred and fifty thousand people have died violent deaths as a result of the invasion.’
Josie comes to watch me pack. ‘Where are you going, Tess?’
‘Ag, just to Muizenberg. This guy’s got hundreds of birds and he needs me to feed them.’
Wish I’d shut up cause Josie’s all stoked, ‘Ah, can I come and see them? Can I come and help?’
Bonita listening hard. I wish they’d all bugger off.
‘No, man. I’m in and out.’ I say to Bonita. ‘I’m gonna work nights.’
‘Why? I’m helping you with the rent.’
‘I wanna milk the last bit of summer.’
Actually, I wanna die.
I say before I go, ‘The horse’s name is Pienkie.’ Josie shakes her head, ‘Oh no. Hurricane.’ Sails the horse through the air.
I don’t tell her Hurricane bites.
As I go out the door, she nags, ‘Please can I come see the birds?’
Madeleine’s cheeky, teasing me, ‘Yes, please can we come?’
Those two make my throat go lame. I say, ‘Okay,’ down the stairs, but I’ve got no volume.
It’s flippin drizzling. And it’s only April.
I get stuck in the finch house that Sunday. I couldn’t care less. Even though I’ll bleed for a while and I’ll be flat bloody broke. Bonita says she’ll help, but she’s too paranoid to leave the flat. I know I need to go out, get a jump. But I couldn’t care less. I’m like Helen of the desert, hiding away. She had owls, I’ve got finches. Only difference is, cement owls don’t shit.
On Darryl’s TV, some kind of show where they’ve got dance and drama students staying in a house. A dreadlocked ballet dancer’s going to bed. No shirt, white long johns. Pulls back his duvet. A groan from somewhere in the room. The white guy’s noticed the boy’s six pack and he’s sick with jealousy. He tries to tense his stomach, tries to get some shape. Dreadlocks just laughs at him, ripples. Lying there I tense my first muscle, tighten the sling. It’s true.
Number two, the band between the bones.
And you knew.
Number three to the solar plexus.
That’s why you didn’t ask.
I get up, change the channel. A black guy talking to a woman with big ears. I’m watching her sharp ears sticking through her hair and she’s saying, ‘What’s different about this initiative?’ It’s one of those sparky interviews where they try make boring stuff sound all hip. There’s a laugh in the man’s eyes. Naughty like he’s noticed her ears. But he’s talking seriously, that musical English with the African beat. The guy, I recognise. Maybe from the agency. Maybe a client from the houses of parliament. But he’s not a politician.
He says, ‘Politicians tend to get caught up in the applause. They admit it themselves.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’ He grins. ‘Only when there are no microphones.’ But he says, if the politicians try break their promise, his organisation charges them interest. ‘And if you think about it, interest is the right word.’ He laughs now, a genuine, happy laugh.
Elf Ears says something like, ‘And you say this is backed up by an international court?’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘They monitor who is on track and who is failing.
They pressurise the foreign affairs ministries to honour their debt.’
Elf Ears asks, ‘So how well does all this go down with the Big Five?’
He chuckles. I swear in that little laugh I recognise Dumi.
The same voice on the radio.
My God. It’s my Dumi.
‘They will get it, in time.’ He scribbles with a finger in the palm of his hand. ‘We rely on their signatures for now.’ He laughs again.
I stare. Dumi taming politicians. Holding signatures in his hand like his imaginary falcons. I half listen as he goes on about Africa being the womb of humankind and how its riches have made the rest of the world fat. How the world must give back to itself to support its weaker parts.
Dumi gets a faraway look, a look I remember from when he was wondering about whether the snails would feel pain, or why the beetles only came to me. ‘It’s funny how people still think in parts. It’s the root of all hypocrisy.’ He says, ‘In countries and individuals. For instance, I could be this person who does all the right things. I could use solar power in my house, I could give the car attendant a good tip. But I could have a family member, say my mother, dying in a back room. And when she cries, I turn the music up.’ Then he says, ‘Honestly, I knew this man who had his buttons polished every day with Brasso, to look smart for work. But at home he sexually abused his daughter …’
A wave of blood breaks on my eardrums. Makes me deaf. I’m looking at him looking at Elf Ears and he’s talking about me. Did it happen? Did he say that? The sound comes back. Something about a big conference next year in Egypt, the first feedback or something, and then she thanks him. She says, ‘Thank you, Dumisani.’
I swear.
Dumi is on his hands and knees, being the mom. Waiting his turn to be the dad. Pretending to polish the floor. Shouting to the dolls, ‘Get a plate. Don’t mess your bread.’
I’m pretending to pee like a horse. I shake my imaginary dinges. Then rub, rub, rub it like Graham. Shudder. Groan. Roll my eyes.
Dumi gets a wondering look. ‘Why do you do that?’
‘That’s what fathers do.’
He doesn’t believe me. What does he know, his dad went to work in Prospecton where the air is sick and stinky. He got a girlfriend and didn’t come back. And Dumi lives in a hut in the sugar cane hills with only a bucket of water and Sunlight soap. No bathroom, like me. Or a father to come in and pee.
‘It’s what white fathers do,’ I say to convince him.
Shit.
I do remember why Graham banned Dumi. It was later. We were bigger. I took Dumi to Graham’s wardrobe. Showed him the mag on the top of the pile. His eyes nearly fell out his head. ‘Cha!’ He had a bloody good look at some chick’s fanny before he chucked it back. Shut the wardrobe. ‘It’s not for children.’ I got all confused, flippin cross. I pushed him away, pulled at the handle. ‘Man, it’s fine, he lets me see them.’
He let go from shock. ‘That’s not right.’ Then he shoved the door again, leaned against it. Squeezed me out, got my hair stuck in the door.
‘Eina!’
‘Sorry, sorry.’
He guarded the door. A big twelve year old. ‘That’s not right.’
I hit Graham in the face. It wasn’t on purpose.
I was dead asleep, tryna hit a hockey ball. I didn’t ever play sport at school, but I was going for a goal. Hockey girls coming at me. I smacked at the ball, but my stick went right through it, like the ball was a ghost. I swung again. Whack! I got it.
Light burst in my face. Graham was crawling, hanging onto his nose. Whispering, ‘Jesus fucking Christ.’
I started giggling, I couldn’t help it. Till I saw the Hustler dropped on the floor. It was time for that. Time for his hands in the night. Time to get out of my body, leave a raw chicken for Graham to stroke and to stuff, like Gladys did, garlic under the skin, take out the insides. Mash them with bread and stuff it full, full, so the bones even stretch.
I swallowed my crying, but this time I said, ‘Dumi says these are not for children. Dumi says it’s not right.’
So Graham got rid of Dumi and made Gladys scared. Her face was stiff the day she said Dumi’s gone. Stiff like those carvings for tourists, like they’re also shit scared to lose their jobs.
Before that, she was noisy, pissed off.
‘Whoo. Umlungu!’ which means, Whoo. Whities! Gladys shook her dark head. ‘Cha,’ she clucked, bunched up my sheets. Dragged my mattress into the sun. When I was six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Semen, blood, wee. All those years Gladys must have known. She
vacuumed Lady’s hair off the couch. Washed the supper dishes, quiet like a burglar because the clunking bugged Graham. Swept the beach sand me and Angie brought home in the gusset of our costumes. The round part of her pointing finger rubbing Graham’s buttons with Brasso.
‘Hayikhona!’ She dropped the mattress on the grass. ‘Umlungu omubi.’ Evil whitie. More angry Zulu sounds, curses for sure. Maybe it was Gladys, not me, who struck Graham down.
I watch TV for a day and a night. Watch everything under the sun. I can’t remember what I watch after Dumi, but I watch till I crash. Wake up Monday before it’s even light. Thank God I didn’t dream.
I eat tuna again instead of Syndol. This is the day. Abort. Take some peace pills. Not as many as before cause I don’t wanna get addicted.
I’ll have to do one more jump. One more for cash, on the way.
I find Darryl’s iron. My red dress doesn’t need much. Flippin thing’s tighter than it used to be. Iron my panties. Tssh. Now I know why. A dirty girl tryna burn clean.
It’s a cruel, clear morning. The traffic’s full of depressed people. Picking, yawning. They see me, don’t believe me. It’s too early for sex. But not for one oke. A driver for Battery Man. A funny little bakkie, high sides. A small, round cab. Sharp little eyes, a squeaky clean dash.
‘Hundred bucks. But you’ve gotto drop me off at the taxi rank afterwards.’
He laughs. ‘Yes, Ma’am.’
Nice shiny dash. His skin shiny from scrubbing. Some hair wax in his curls.
‘We’ll go to the workshop, then I’ll run you back before we open.’
I get in. The radio on. No sand, no ash, not even on the sack around the gear stick.
‘This out the box?’
‘Three years old.’
‘Looks new.’
‘I do the dash with conditioning oil. It takes me just under an hour to get it looking like this.’
‘Sheez.’
‘It’s nothing, it’s quick.’
Hope he’ll be quick with me.
We go past the crippled beggar at the Military Road lights, blowing his sports whistle. He looks down at people’s hands, their bags, takes coppers from cracks in the windows. Blasts his whistle when the light turns green. Drowns out the birdsong on the radio. Some guy’s collected songs in the Amazon. He plays some parrots screeching. Says they only use a few sounds in the wild, it’s only when you stick them in a cage they start copying things. The ou plays a weird toucan call.
Past more lights, the truck so quiet you can hear the scientist tramping through mud. Cracking branches.
The buttons on Graham’s overall. Brown crimpelene cloth, sore against my sunburnt skin.
The jump speeds up, drives windgat suddenly. Pushes through red robots, pumps muffled revs up people’s backsides. Straight past Battery Man.
I point, ‘Hey! Isn’t that it?’
When he doesn’t answer, fear whacks my belly like a gong.
I know I’m in shit. He pulls in at Symphony Exhausts instead. It’s closed. So’s the next door café. The street still shut for the night. I pull up the knob of the lock on my side. He slides his arm across, grinds my hand down on the window frame. Central locking slides back on.
‘Shit, why’d you do that? I’m here to have fun, not run.’
I’m sweating already. He presses the button of a remote. The double garage door rolls open.
‘What’s your problem?’
He drives in.
‘Hey, I’m not into this if you’re gonna lock me in.’
But he pushes the remote and we’re on the dark side of the roller door.
The scientist plays a blue fronted something calling its mate. I try the knob again. This time he doesn’t stop me. I fall out.
I’m in deep shit. I know it. He flicks through some keys. An innocent green tag says Stock. My brain goes into a panic. That broomstick, if I bang on the metal door it’ll make a racket. He turns away, follows oil drops to a blue door. Fits the key. I run, grab the broom. Bang! Bang! Bang! on the roller door. Scream, ‘HE-E-LP!’
He shoves the blue door open, charges for me. I try rip open a toolbox mounted on the wall. Shit. It’s locked. The only loose thing is a number plate. A broom and a number plate, a big mistake to wave them like that. He susses me out, then moves like a flippin martial arts oke. Grabs the broom, shoves it into my spine. I scream the pain out my lungs. He angles me into the stock room. Locks it.
The number plate blocks a few blows before it flies, skids under a rack of shining trumpets. New metal exhausts. He beats me with the broom.
‘No!’
Filthy bastard, hurting me. I kick at him, ‘No!’
He hits my legs so I fall on my knees. I try grab the broom, he smashes my hands, smashes my head. I go over my knees, hide my belly, hide my face. Wait for a chance. Grab a steel trumpet off the shelf, swing it at him. Crack his hip.
He shoves me over, glad I’m fighting. His eyes burning silver, drunk on violence. High on the power, his penis stiff in his pants. Fucker. He shoves me over, hits my side. Bastard, hurting the baby. I roll into a ball, scream blue murder. The harder I scream the softer he hits.
I get the game. I wail to protect the kid. Think of it twitching, spinning, tryna hide. Slipping somewhere under my muscles, tryna find quiet while I scream like a banshee to keep it alive. He goes softer, bruises my back, my arms, but not breaking anything. He loves the screaming, he’s done this before. In this stock room, cut off from the day. He’s in ecstasy, like he’s pigging on pleasure, not beating up a chick. The screaming works. He stands wanking, rows of silver silencers behind him. Pig does the honours. Messes on my head.
Sticks two pink notes under the strap of my dress. He escorts me out, holds my elbow tight. Opens up. Closes. Leaves me there. Whirrs over the bridge behind his beautiful dash. Filthy bastard.
I saved the baby. I think I did. I try clean my hair with a wet wipe. Unwrap my last Triple X mint. Carry on like I’m alive, but I’m shut down. Inside, I’m dead. I wait on the concrete outside the silencer shop. I wait for lights to come on in the buildings. For machines to start up. For keys in the tills. I wait for the day to start up my shocked heart. While I’m waiting, I get the whole flash. Clear as day, like a photo.
Graham’s just finished with that slimy stuff. You walk in. His pants are still down, his hairy bum’s facing the door. I see your face, it’s frozen like the picture I drew of you at school. Your eyes too big, your nose a straight line. Lips cut in, too high on your chin. You look just like my drawing, Mom. You’re in your khaki Croc World uniform, with its brown men’s shoes. You walk backwards, hit my wardrobe. Graham jerks round, knees bent to protect his jewels. You crab walk, bump out. Graham hisses, ‘Hide the book, it’s making Mom sick.’
I’m stuck, still thinking about how I’d drawn you so ugly. But I hide the Hustler when I hear you being sick. Flushing the toilet again and again.
You saw.
I can’t even cry.
I wait for the street to come awake. Wait for the weak sun to charge me.
I’m gonna get him. Wait for the exhaust shop to open. Tell them what happens in their stock room.
Maybe they already know.
Above me, a gull flies straight along a telephone wire. Up over the bridge. Dead straight, maybe to the sea. Incredibly white. Soft under its tummy.
No.
I’ll follow that bird to Battery Man. I’ll show him. I’ll go show his boss what he’s done.
I make my beaten body walk.
There are girls on this road. They must know him by now, know what he’s into. Tell him to get lost. That’s why he came all the way to Sunrise. There’s a princess on the road, I swear, colour of Illovo syrup. Hair burnt golden. Maybe it’s the beating, my nerves. Maybe it’s magic, the morning sun. The plait down her back is maybe just cheap peroxide, maybe it’s just old, split rope. But me, I see burning gold. She leans back against a lamp post, her hips daring the drivers.
There’s
a deli in the middle of all these factories. Funny nuts and fat tin cans that say Asparagus Spears in Brine. My stomach clenches air. Sical coffee. Fusilli. I go past the Granite and Marble Specialists. Past Used Auto Parts. Past Evergreen, a yard full of ship containers, piled high. Nowhere near the sea. Just waves of traffic.
I stuck the Hustler inside Angie’s book on farm animals. The cart horse on the cover had long feathers on its legs. You didn’t even see Sahara Jones and you got sick in the toilet. Sahara Jones didn’t shave her legs. She had blonde hair everywhere like that silver leaf tree near the soldier’s memorial on the beach. And boobs hanging heavy like paw paws. Sahara Jones would have made you vomit even more, probably, cause Sahara made Graham stick his thing into me. So I hid the Hustler between the farm animals. But I knew he’d want it back, when you were at Croc World and he came home to eat and get strong for night shift. Make lush with me, eat roast meat and green beans that Gladys made, then go and shove those levers, make the lights come on, make the train engine go. The noise messed up his eardrums and made him deaf, made him shout instead of talk and put the TV on too loud.
My God, I’m dizzy. I lean against some vibracrete. The golden princess is pissed off, me leaning on her beat. Her fists at her sides, a fighting spine. Forgetting to invite the drivers. I hang onto the edge of the wall. See up there, on a high green container, her pimp like a sniper. Standing up to check me out, showing against the sky.
‘I’ve been beaten up.’
She shrugs. ‘Go there.’ Points behind me.
Over the wall, a mess of metal. Crumpled cars stored two up, one on top of the other. In the driveway, a tiny green Anglia. A giant unravels out of it. His big bullet head level with the chassis of a smashed car.
‘Hey.’
He holds up a hand to stop me begging. I go in the gate, follow the giant up a long, long rubber mat going to the office. It covers black sand, lost washers, engine nuts. Inside, a guy in a wheelchair. Long hair, creamy skin. Doing the books.
‘I need to get to hospital.’
‘What’s up, Lady?’ Only now the giant talks to me. He’s got one eye much smaller than the other. A floppy bottom lip.
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