Whiplash

by Tracey Farren

  Hanif’s hair is cut short, his eyelashes are like tassels. But his eyes are dead abalone. He wants me out. I point at the bowler, ‘It took millions of years for us to get our heads up. But check how they clap when someone bends over.’

  Hanif nods like he’s taking a statement. He wedges his bum on the dusty desk, folds his arms, waits.

  I blurt, ‘I’m pregnant. Remember when the condom popped?’

  ‘Your business.’

  ‘Please buy me.’

  ‘Your business,’ he says. Applause outside, someone manages to bend.

  ‘Buy me, I’ll convert to Islam.’ His dead lips loosen into a laugh.

  I can’t stop begging. ‘I’ll stay in the back room.’ I stare at the dry water jug. Contract my sphincter, so I won’t cry. Outside, the mountain listens. ‘I’ll be your white monkey.’

  He laughs, grabs my breasts. Jiggles them like controls on an arcade game. ‘I can have a white monkey anytime?’ He shoves my back onto the desk. Kentucky Chicken boxes all round my head. A two way radio goes, ‘A young girl has been raped …’

  Hanif lets me go.

  I’m outside. Gravity chucks me down the hill. The mountain spits its seeds at me. Suddenly it’s quiet from the bowling green. I look up. They’re all watching me, the old fogies. Old men bending over the white picket fence. Their faces hanging nearly off. I wake up, shit scared their faces are gonna fall on me, like pizzas.

  It’s winter this morning. The baby’s still got her two cravings, fish and avo. I wear Darryl’s leather jacket. Annie’s white scarf wrapped round my neck. Try Shoprite for avos. They’re all rock hard, so I get hair bleach instead. I drop it at the finch house, hit the road.

  My knees are flippin blue in the North Wester. Even the air’s purple from the cold. I try the garage shop. Ask nicely for another ripe avo. The guy’s thick glasses flash like headlights, hide his eyes. A good deed maybe, feed the pregnant whore. Weird, but it feels like he knows who it’s for. I pig the avo at the vibracrete wall.

  The Pretoria policeman gets me before I can hide. He’s missing Annie, must be. He knows where I’m staying. Drops me a block from the finch house, makes me go in first.

  His shoulder blades are freckled, stick out of his skin. A skinny little twerp, but he doesn’t feel the chill. He’s the opposite of Hanif. He likes to strip off kaalgat, keep me half dressed. Today he wants to lick my legs. From here where I’m standing, his tongue’s long and curly. His bum bones stick out. Sounds like he’s saying an Afrikaans name. A woman’s name, unless he’s praying in flippin tongues.

  ‘Lazaan, Lazaan,’ in a little boy voice.

  I hope to God it’s not his mother.

  He goes up on his knees, tries to lick higher. I’m pissed off, I dunno why. Itching to slap him in the face, knee him in the nose. Maybe it’ll make him whip out his gun, maybe it’ll trigger a spasm of flippin bliss. I can’t stop him now, so I test myself out. Try that train fantasy.

  Tap-tap-tap of the wheels on the track. But I can’t carry on cause I see that it’s Graham. The man on the train. Blonde tipped moustache. Sulky stomach. White hips, a woman’s hips. Rude, rude penis where it hurts. It’s not secret and sexy. Making lush hurts. It gets inside and I can’t get away. We’re locked like the dogs and I wanna chop him off. Chop him up. Blast him with a hose so pieces fly off and get stuck in the trees.

  I slap Pretoria’s face. Hard, so he slams on his side.

  There’s a knocking at the door at the same time.

  ‘Ssssh.’

  Another knock.

  I’m feeling weak, freaked. Pretoria’s flippin fuming. Tomato ears.

  Red veins in his eyes.

  ‘What, didn’t you like that?’ I act dumb.

  Thank God for the knocking cause Pretoria’s in a flippin red rage. ‘Bitch!’

  ‘Ag, sorry man, I thought you were into a bit of …’

  He rips his pants on. Shoves a finger into a bruise on my breast, ‘I’m not one of these.’

  ‘Eina.’

  The person at the door gives up.

  I follow him at a safe distance to the door. Can’t resist saying, ‘You don’t have to pay.’

  Bastard never does. He jerks round, but I make sure to keep my face sweet.

  I take the afternoon off. Go blonde again. Straight bottle blonde, fighting bloody fit. But Lennie pitches up at the house, whips it all out of me.

  His face is shaved. He smells of some cooking herb. He won’t come inside. There’s a new battery in this rag doll, he’s got something ticking in him. Alive eyes. Steps up, steps down the stair. Keeps staring at my hair. ‘I came to tell you, me and Chantal fixed things up.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘You know you said I must carve her? I asked her and she said yes!’

  ‘Oh ja?’

  ‘She posed for me.’

  ‘What, kaalgat?’

  ‘No, man, in a dress.’ His skaam switches to naughty. ‘A thin dress.’

  ‘Oh ja?’

  ‘We started talking again. She told me she just wants me to be close. Not gone all the time. She doesn’t want me to feel bad because I’m … I’m …’ We say it together, ‘Sterile.’

  He sits down on the step, goes slack. Stares at his hanging hands. ‘I told her about you, but she says she doesn’t want you to be my friend. She asked me not to see you.’ He lifts his face to me like I’m a priest, waiting for a watery cross or something. Shit. A stitch pulls in my heart.

  I shrug.

  ‘She’s scared we’ll have sex.’

  I laugh, a dry drain, through air locks.

  ‘I sat behind her first, and she talked. I didn’t argue with her because I was so busy carving.’

  He’s telling the wrong priest.

  ‘The next time, I worked from the side.’ He turns sideways, faces my knees, sees his precious wife. ‘Then I worked from the front.’ He faces the gate. Pure victory.

  I say the obvious. ‘The dress came off.’

  His smile is a wraparound. I dunno why but I wanna hurt him.

  ‘And did you get it up?’

  His torch light eyes tell the story.

  ‘So now you’re a man again.’

  He looks away, hides his pride. ‘It’s nearly finished. I’ll bring it …’ He stops, remembering. I watch him, tight. Don’t let him off. He gets up, drifts to the window, puts his face against it. ‘It’s strange how people go overboard, hey? This guy with his birds …’

  ‘Ja and you and your horses.’

  I’m still doing it, still tryna hurt him, like outside the wrestling.

  He fiddles with his keys.

  ‘I hope they can cure the whiplash.’

  A fine line between his midnight eyes.

  ‘Your sperm.’

  Lennie goes slack with shock. Then looks ashamed, I think for me. He shuffles out the gate. A feeble wave. His smile sad, for sure.

  But when he drives off his Mini clatters a happy tune, I swear.

  Idiot. Boneless twit. I vloek him in my mind. It’s only when I’m changing the newspaper in the cages, smoothly so the finches don’t freak out, I see the horse Josie left. Something in my heart sucks empty. He gave it to me. Okay, it’s covered in finch shit and scooby doo, but he gave it to me. He showed me his carvings, he showed me his biting horse. He told me how shit scared he was as a kid.

  How his wife ate cake cause he couldn’t fill her up.

  He showed me his pathetic willy.

  I leave the horse there. Let the finches shit on it.

  He was my friend. I fight the seep in my eyes, feeling empty like his flippin wife. Like I’m just water that wants to run. Alone, so lonely, I wanna hit the walls just to see I’m real. Make pain so I can’t feel the craving. I’m lonely with no pills. Lonely with this baby inside.

  Lennie just dropped me like I’m a nothing.

  Geez, I swear, there I am dying, lonely as hell, and Madeleine arrives, out of breath, bringing presents. She must’ve pounded down the
hill with that blue fabric streaming. She comes in like a smug, rich person. She’s made me a skirt and a veil. Says she didn’t have enough stuff for a bra. Madeleine’s got a huge yellow skirt on. It’s like deep honey, dusted with brown pollen dots. A sailor striped vest, red and white. Her pink leggings peep out. Her hair’s also in holiday braids. The skirt she made me is that purply, morning sea blue, there where it bumps against the horizon. The veil is the green just behind the sand bank. She says my hair looks nice. She makes me try the skirt on, thinks she’s got rights since she pulled me out the bath. Madeleine goes quiet. Stares at my stomach. Lifts the skirt, checks my thighs. Touches my face.

  ‘Tess. You are getting fat!’

  Hope sneaks onto her face, sits tight. I lift handfuls of blue fabric. My thighs nearly touch at the top. First time ever. And there’s something of Angie in my cheeks. I hide my stomach with my arms, point my eyes at Madeleine’s stretched stripes, a fatty lifebelt round her middle.

  ‘I’m getting fat?’ I check the mirror again. Geez, I look solid.

  ‘I’m having the baby.’

  Madeleine leaps like those frightened buck on the mountain. But she’s whooping like a soccer player. She wraps me in my sand bank veil and kisses me through it. Her gladness goes through it, right into me. Makes me laugh like Annie, when those buck parted for her.

  Madeleine herds me back into the bloody ring. Into the belly class, like a flippin proud mother. Watching me like she made me, bursting with the news. When we’ve stretched, we do a whole sequence to get warm. Hip lifts, hip drops, shimmy shimmy, glide. Red Scalp’s raving. ‘Beautiful! Beautiful!’

  We put on our new skirts. Do it again. Red Scalp’s excited as anything. ‘Wonderful! We’ll do the last part with raised veils. Again!’

  My fingertips on each end of my veil. I lift it behind me. The colour so beautiful I can’t believe it’s me.

  When we’re gliding, Red Scalp says, ‘You’re moving as one.

  Can you feel it? There’s no space between you.’

  We dance to Shiva, whoever that is. Press our hands together above our head. Our knees bent, we go step tap, step tap, bend to the side. Nine times, then Red Scalp says, ‘Stamp it out! Stamp it out!’

  We beat the drums of war with our feet, the drums of No. Don’t mess with us we’ve got weapons. We’ve got hips. We’ve got heels. We’ll whip you, stamp you, into the ground. We drum as one.

  Red Scalp climbs onto a step ladder, doesn’t care we can see up her skirt. Bulky white thighs, bare toes on the rung. She pulls a strap. Gold pours from the roof. A dazzling shower of shiny, gold cloth. With it, a whole burst of slow dust. No dead arms, no dead legs. No one molesting a kid. No dying mother. That baggy bit in the roof, it’s a flippin curtain. An over the top drape, a golden promise, a soft sliding door to flippin glory. The women cheer, their faces tinted with gold.

  ‘You know what this means,’ Red Scalp says.

  The others nod, but I’ve got no clue.

  ‘We start rehearsing for the Mother City concert.’

  No way, not me.

  ‘I’m starting a Saturday afternoon class. I need names. Whoever’s definite for the concert, please put your names on the list at the door. The castle’s huge.’ She looks straight at me. ‘We need dancers.’

  No way.

  Later, Egyptian touches my hand. ‘Are you dancing at the Gay Festival?’

  I shake my head violently. Ask, ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The Mother City Gay Festival. The belly concert’s part of it.’

  ‘Not me.’ As in no way. Not gay. Don’t dance.

  ‘Please dance,’ she asks, so, so nicely.

  Who is this chick? What does she want?

  But next thing they’re all asking, ‘Come on, Tess.’

  ‘Do it.’

  ‘Dance.’

  Red Scalp chucks in, ‘We need you.’

  I ask Madeleine, ‘Are you gonna dance?’ She turns up her hands like she’s got no choice. A beautiful white smile, makes her look like Noel. Crispy Nora squeezes Madeleine’s shoulder. Says to me, ‘Come on, Tess.’

  I swear, I end up with a shrug. Keep my eyes on a cat’s whipping tail. Say, ‘Maybe.’

  Egyptian and Red Scalp go, ‘Yaay!’ like silly kids. But then someone mentions September. I add quickly on my fingers, so no one can see. I’ll be eight months pregnant. There’s no chance of me dancing.

  Red Scalp asks us to curtsey. I copy the others. Pointed toe, leg across, arms way up, wrists back to back. Twist at the hips, lean back.

  We’re holding that lean, trembling with the bloody effort, she says, ‘Remember we dance to celebrate the resurrection.’

  Oh, God, she’s sneaking in some church. She looks at me, at my twisted middle. ‘And I’m not only talking about Jesus. I’m talking about the end of all sacrifice.’

  She’s giggling now, cause we’re groaning, fighting to hold the curtsey.

  Madeleine moans, ‘Phyll-is!’

  ‘Ascension Day’s coming up.’

  My muscles wanna snap. I keep my eyes on the sparkling gold.

  I’m not scared. I know the truth. So what else?

  ‘Okay, thank you.’

  We drop our shapes, hang our arms. Curse her gently.

  I’m hanging down, still seeing gold, when I remember you did say No, Ma. You did. You said No and hit me with your slop.

  That time with Draincleaner. It was a big, fat No, cause straight after that, Graham stopped using me like a wife.

  You said No, Ma.

  You did!

  Seems like the stars are in 3D tonight. The cold wind’s shined them clear and bright. The sky stretches away like, I dunno, sparkling fabric. As usual Madeleine tries to get me back to the flat. I nearly say yes. To have the girls say, Tess this and Tess that. Bonita telling me the fishing news. Noel catching me whenever I walk past. Giving me bompies. I feel nearly homesick.

  ‘No, it’s okay.’

  Madeleine gets weird. Touches the skirt in my hands. ‘When I sewed this for you, I thought of my daughter.’ Madeleine’s spotted eyes look blind. Like she’s seeing her daughter against some faraway sky, or maybe under some sticky city bush. Madeleine pushes up my sleeves, checks out the yellow smudges from Battery Man’s broom.

  ‘I look like a corpse,’ I joke.

  ‘No!’

  I swear I wanna drop into her, fold into her big, strong belly. Put my ear where I can hear her heart beating.

  She tries again, ‘Come with me.’

  ‘Ag, no.’ I take back my arms. ‘I’ll sleep better on my own.’

  But I don’t even try sleep. I take the duvet to the couch. Sit up with the bloody past.

  Draincleaner was a short oke with a barrel chest. Peroxide hair and missing teeth. Two grades above. He said he was a Born Again. A couple of his piano keys were broken, middle C was one, I think. The keys were yellow, like his teeth, and when he hit the broken notes it was like, oops, the waiter dropped the tray. He had a good voice, I admit. It was like, I dunno, good earth, you know, dark sand with roots. But he spat when he sang. I started watching to see where it would land. The keys got slippery, but still he banged at them, singing stuff like,’ It’s for you, Lord that I slog, Every day I jog through fog, Holding high your very name, Holding up your sacred flame.’

  Except his spit would have snuffed the sacred flame.

  He said he was gonna make a recording one day.

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘Tess, how would you like to be flooded by the Holy Spirit?’

  ‘Okay.’ It’s not like I could choose my friends. Plus I was thirteen, keen to try things. ‘What must I do?’

  ‘Nothing. The Spirit will come. It will.’ Geez, it was like he got personal points.

  ‘It sounds a bit weird.’

  ‘I’ll give you a little drink, to make it easier for the Spirit.’

  He lived in a back room in his auntie’s house. He said his auntie was also a Born Again, gone to visit her sister. Sh
e must’ve also been been bananas cause she hid the key to her drinks cabinet in her old marriage certificate. I swear. Her old husband died from drinking, so she used the crumpled old promise to warn herself off the booze. All she had in there was liqueurs. Maybe to get around God’s liquor laws. Thick drinks that stank of fruit. Banana advocaat, peach shnapps, strawberry liqueur, apple.

  He took the bottle of apple liqueur. Poured some into our school juice bottles, in case someone came in and bust us. I got dizzy fast. Felt like my teeth were gonna fall out. I ate the jam sandwiches from my lunch box, listened for the smashed glass cords, jabbed a finger in the air when they came.

  In between songs he asked, ‘Have you been filled?’

  ‘I dunno.’

  He sang so hard he blew a white bubble of spit in the corner of his mouth. I pointed at that too, made him wipe it. Happy on apple, I thought the Holy Spirit will have to save me from him and his spit.

  I didn’t know how right I was till I’d had enough. I’d already worked out a plan. I’d swallow toothpaste for the alcohol smell. Go straight to bed, say I had a runny tummy. But the door to Draincleaner’s room wouldn’t open. Another flippin hidden key.

  ‘Where’s the key?’

  But it’s like he didn’t hear. One juice bottle of apple liqueur and he was squeezing out tears. Singing stuff that didn’t rhyme anymore, ‘God’s work is so hard, The hardship so hard, No one understands, How hard it is, To work for God.’ He sang a song about high school, about ambushes and attacks. I wasn’t too stressed, so I stayed for a bit, helped him with some lyrics. ‘Jesus, I will fight for you, Take all the flak for you, Be teased and torn apart for you, Fight for my life, For youuuu.’

  He thought I was getting close to being filled, but I was just pissed. Singing, ‘People say I’m mad for you, I take it like a man for you, Sing my heart out for you, Jesus I will die for youuuu.’

  But he still wouldn’t let me out. I panicked. ‘You’d better get ready to die because my stepdad’s gonna kill you. You’d better hope he calls the police and doesn’t come looking himself.’

  He still wouldn’t give me the key, so I made a couple of runs, some little kicks at the door. Draincleaner was fast, flippin beef on wheels. Breathing out apple fumes, he caught my foot. ‘Hey! There’s no need to break things. Jesus tells me no. You can’t go. You’re close, very close.’