Whiplash

by Tracey Farren

  Nora goes outside, says to the boys, ‘If you break the flowers, you will both get a smack.’ She climbs up to shut the garden umbrella. ‘So the winky in the hole thing was like a law.’ I carry her tea pot, burn my fingers. Eina. I dip them in the blow-up pool. Shit, they’re sizzled.

  Nora battles up there, her skinny arms shaking. The umbrella snaps closed. Spiders’ webs fly out, float like a veil. Nora comes down from her flippin sheer height. She fetches a flowery cloth. Purple flowers, tiny little bruises. Pink middles. I hold up the pot, use my t-shirt this time, while Nora chucks the cloth on the table. The milky winter sun sinks into us. The boys rip petals off a christmas flower, drop them in their mixture. Add some broken sticks. Nora pours tea from her pot. ‘But we’ve got our special part outside our bodies. Not inside.’ Behind her, yellow trumpet flowers stick out their tongues. ‘And most men don’t bother with it. They just ignore women’s rapture …’ One boy runs out the house with a deodorant can. I look away, so’s not to bust him. ‘… thrusting away, and the woman is ever so kind and lets him. A lot of women have to go into the bathroom and, you know, finish themselves off.’ He blasts the potion with deodorant spray.

  ‘And that’s normal!’

  Nora chucks back her tea, starts her next cup. Goes on about how men speak ugly about women, how they cut them down with looks. How they don’t take them seriously, how they call them stupid. The boys have whipped up a muddy foam, chucked the deodorant on the grass. It’s a man’s one, Blue Stratus. Picture of a seagull.

  ‘But women are boycotting.’ Behind Nora, the boys spoon brown foam into her yellow trumpet flowers, down their throats. Nora keeps shoving Shere Hite down mine. ‘Women are leaving. Up and out. Or turning to each other. That’s why I think we could be friends, you and I.’

  Now I stare straight at the boys. What’s she saying?

  ‘Not the touchy, touchy type, but as Shere says, to support each other.’ More tea from the metal pot. Trumpets dripping brown spit. Nora sings her song, on and on. ‘I was lucky. A lucky, lucky fish. My ex used to joke about women’s vaginas. He called them tarantulas, he said they smell bad. I laughed to keep the peace, I went in on the joke. But I stopped laughing when he hit me. And where did he hit me? On the tits.’

  Nora doesn’t have tits. The trumpets bend under the weight of the potion. It’s like Nora’s drinking truth tea, flippin singing out her guts. She thinks she’s found a manhating mate.

  Then this thin ponytail arrives at the gate. The mystery dog runs inside. A black and white foxy, with the oke from the supertubes. The rubber band man. His smile is slow and soft. Melts Nora in her chair. The boys run to the dog, take one ear each, scratch behind it. Supertubes bends, strokes their blonde heads. Nora’s red, red in the face like she’s been caught stealing. Gets up, kisses the oke on the cheek. Gets him a tea cup. She chucks in, to prove she’s still serious, ‘I was bulimic for years.’

  I get up fast, ‘I’ve gotto go feed the finches.’

  My crispy new friend follows me to the gate, sees me onto the street. Makes excuses, ‘He loves my boys.’

  She’s come to the wrong place for forgiveness. I slam the gate on my hand as I go. ‘Shit!’ Her hands flutter over the gate, tryna help, but I stay out of reach.

  She begs one last time, ‘He saw his own brother commit suicide.’

  I turn my back and gap it.

  What am I, some flippin mankilling queen?

  Stuff her.

  She knows nothing about me.

  I stay at the house for the rest of the day. Watch horse racing on TV. Think, maybe I am a ballbreaking bitch.

  But what about all my dreams of getting married? Of some man loving me? It wasn’t just the pills.

  I test myself. Let my mind go.

  Maybe I’ll marry a jockey. A little oke like a boy doll. So small I could hold him on my lap if I wanted. He’ll have dwar fish outfits hanging in the wardrobe, he’ll have to stand on his toes to get them down. He’ll take me about up to my shoulder. Be quick to fetch my jersey when we leave dinners. He’ll get me fresh fish fillets and make me muesli by hand. He will have grey eyes, no vices. He’ll have trucks of money, we’ll own a herd of racehorses ourselves. I’ll appear in the papers with the winning gal, but my pictures will never be posed. Just me, murmuring to the horse, a hand on its noseband.

  He will cling to me, cling on with his bandy legs, but his willie’s so tiny I’d hardly know it’s in and he’ll shoot at the drop of a hat. To him I’ll be royalty, fit for red and gold silk. He’ll be proud of my mind. I’ll do night courses, write essays about famous writers. Doris someone and Dorothy someone. I’ll be his queen, never mind my past.

  God, I’m pathetic. In the habit of daydreaming stupid princess dreams.

  Impossible, dumb dreams and in real life it’s just sex with strangers. Sex. Sex. Sex.

  At least I know why.

  There were thousands of devil thorns in the front yard. Angie and me put rubber mats in a row to make you and Graham a garden path. Angie hopped on the mats, on her way out with Gladys. You were still working then. Graham got the magazines out of his wardrobe and said I’ll grow up to be like the girls with hanging lamps. I’ll have a man to love me.

  ‘Where will you be?’

  He laughed, ‘I’ll be dead.’

  ‘No, Daddy. I don’t want you to die.’

  ‘You won’t need me then. You’ll have your husband.’

  ‘No, Daddy! I don’t want one. I don’t want a husband.’

  That’s the truth.

  He made me sick in the head.

  I’ve never even had man friends. Except for Lennie.

  I swear, a flippin smile cuts into my cheeks. And Dumi!

  I loved Dumi. I didn’t care what Graham said.

  ‘That pug here today?’ Graham asked after his shift, his top lip all thin.

  ‘What’s a pug?’

  Graham got that look on his face, like a laugh swimming. He pointed at the ginger hairs on his arm. Spoke slowly, like I was stupid.

  ‘A pug has got black skin, pink gums.’

  Dumi had very black skin and normal pink gums. I know cause I checked after that. He didn’t have shoes, so his skin was thick from the long walk into those mystery hills where he lived. But he wore a sock on his hand to protect him from invisible dagger claws. He fed his invisible wild falcons with bits of meat crammed into your fishing belt. Stuck meaty fig leaves in the round hole where the rod goes. The birds were quite useful in war. They brought messages from far and sent for backup.

  Our friend Sanette was into horses. It was her idea to tape devil thorns to our boots to make spurs. We rode imaginary brumbies we roped in from the wild. We were cowboys, but we used the Indian call.

  ‘Ai-eee-aa-ee-aa-ee-aaai!’

  We hid in our mountain, Sanette’s gravel heap.

  The first time we ever met Sanette, Dumi and I were burying some dolls in that dark Natal sand. Dumi was wailing like a grieving African, but softly. I was mumbling the daily bread part of the Lord’s Prayer over and over, scattering crumbs. Later, Indian myna birds would come in their black suits to snatch them. Sanette watched from the other side of the road, at the foot of the new gravel heap.

  ‘I know a special song.’

  We ignored her.

  ‘It’s for burying babies.’

  She came from a faraway Afrikaans place. I could tell by her accent. And she looked much older than us. I nodded. She leapt up, slipped on the gravel. Snorted a laugh to cover her pain. A raw skid mark on her fat knee, crusty with gravel. If it was me I would have been crying a rut in the sand, but she thundered back home on her little feet. A natural ballerina, probably, but her mother made her fried bread, fried pork, as many fried eggs as she liked. They even fried their pumpkin.

  She came back with a fistful of ear buds and a book of ancient pop songs. Dumi and me dug out the dolls, tried not to hurry. She gave us each an ear bud. I did Lucy, the doll with the lazy eye and chunks of yellow
hair, empty hair pores in between. Dumi had one of Angie’s new dolls, the unlucky twin. We cleaned out their eyes and their fake, moulded ears. Then we buried them slowly, all over again. Sanette opened the song book and sang that Blue Spanish Eyes song, extra slow. It had nothing to do with dead babies. Dumi fetched Oros and dry macaroni from his mom in the kitchen. Arranged them carefully for the spirits. By the time Sanette sang the chorus, I knew it was bullshit. I grabbed the book and read wrong, ‘Eggleburnt Humpledick.’ I clamped my hand over my mouth, fell backwards, sent the Oros flying all over the flowers. ‘Humple dick! Humple dick!’ I ran round the garden, in one of my mad bursts, letting off nerves. Gladys stuck her head out the window. ‘Ssssh, your mother’s sleeping.’

  Sanette took us home to try make up, to clinch us as friends, even though we weren’t much of a catch. Dumi black with pink gums and me all watery and weird. Sanette’s dad was inside, burping on the couch. He saw us through the door, said, ‘Ek wil’ie daai floppy hier hê nie.’

  Sanette’s mother blocked up the door, no light showing behind her big body. ‘Just the girls. The boy won’t want to play girls games.’

  Sanette’s dad’s voice rumbled like an oily feast digesting.

  Sanette got sucked in somehow, behind her mother. Dumi waited, still thinking of the fried bread and syrup Sanette promised us. He said, ‘But I like to play with girls.’

  Oily squeaks as Sanette’s dad struggled up, spitting, ‘Bleddy onnosele munt. Ek sal daai houtie donner …’

  Dumi stayed, still thinking like a kid, waiting for a chink of light. I cracked. As usual overdoing things. I pulled Dumi hard so he fell off the stoep. ‘Come Dumi, they hate you.’

  Sanette wailed behind the fat barrier, her pa growled behind her mother, lunch slip sliding inside him, me overdoing it again, ‘Come man, he’s gonna hit you!’

  I tried to pull Dumi, make him run, but he shook me off. Walked tall down the drive. I walked with him, a whole body of space between us.

  I went and got my school knitting, a blue thing full of holes. I unraveled the whole lot. Dumi and me watched it reverse by magic, a pull of the thread and the whole thing unwound to nothing. Gone. Then we went for a mega sweet fix. Wilsons toffees from Ricardo’s café, sheez, a whole pile, one for each tooth. They stained our mouths black, stained us as buddies. We went all crazy from the sugar, then crashed. Dumi made paper aeroplanes, wrote on them with pencil. Flew them into the gravel pile. I sat at the top, cast on my knitting all over again. Wishing I could go into Sanette’s. Music came muffled from inside their brick house. Humple dick, probably. But Dumi wouldn’t let me out of his sight. Later, Dumi’s mom made us pick up the aeroplanes. Just as well cause they all had Dumi’s spelling on them, Fuck in fatty.

  I get the phone book. Look up Cape Talk. Call the number. Ask for Dumisani Gumede, from the Belly of Africa Feeding Foundation. They don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. ‘He was also on TV … uh, Monday night.’

  They give me the number for the SABC.

  I dunno why I’m doing this. The SABC tries to give me the donation number for his organisation. I say, no, I want his telephone number. The guy on the line sounds disappointed in me.

  I dunno why I’m doing it. I ask Belly of Africa’s receptionist, ‘Can I speak to Dumisani Gumede please?’

  ‘In connection with?’

  Graham’s shiny buttons.

  ‘It’s Tess. It’s personal.’

  She turns charming, ‘Hold on a seccie …’ ‘Tess!’

  He’s so flippin glad, he must have the wrong Tess.

  ‘Do you know which Tess this is?’

  ‘Of course!’

  He’s faking it, for sure.

  ‘Tess from Hibberdene,’ he says.

  I’m dead quiet.

  ‘My best friend until I was twelve,’ he says. ‘Of course I know you.’

  My throat aches like I’ve got tonsillitis. ‘I saw you on TV.’

  Graham’s brown crimpelene makes static on the line.

  ‘Oh God. Sorry, Tess.’

  That sorry makes it all true.

  ‘I didn’t think … Dammit.’ He waits but my throat is rusted up.

  He asks quietly, ‘Where are you? Where do you live, now?’

  ‘Cape Town,’ I choke.

  ‘He-ey, man! Me too. Where?’

  ‘Fish Hoek.’

  Fat chance. Fish Hoek is full of pale, decent people who trim their hedges.

  ‘Man, we lost touch.’ The affection in his voice starts a whole sea pushing to get free. He misses the girl he thinks I still am.

  ‘Tess, what are you up to?’

  I can’t answer.

  ‘Are you married with kids?’

  ‘No. I’m a dancer.’ The big fat lie floats me. ‘A professional dancer.’

  He starts laughing. A big trusting laugh, simple flipping joy. I drop the phone down in the middle of it.

  I dunno why I phoned him. I really dunno. Maybe I’m tryna add Dumi to my twisted daydreams. But the real ending’s stuffed up cause of who I really am. Imagine if I said, ‘Actually I’m a Muizenberg whore. I work Prince George Drive, you know, where the M5 ends. And by the way, I’m nearly four months pregnant.’

  I know why he laughed. I know he remembered us dancing in Jojo’s horsebox. There behind Ricardo’s café. Jojo was Italian and retarded. We never saw his pony cause it lived in the hills near Dumi’s place. But Dumi wasn’t allowed near those paddocks, the guy who ran the stables said he’d whip the black kids if they went near. But Dumi was safe with me, and Ricardo liked us to hang out with Jojo. Keep him out of the shop with his big bunch of keys. The kid was obsessed, stuck keys in locks all day long. The fridges, the doors, always tryna break into the safe with a big yale key. Cooked in the head. When he got in a huff he stuck his keys into brand new loaves of bread. So we hung out in the horsebox, let Jojo fiddle with the ignition, stick his keys in the ashtray on the dash. Strip Ricardo’s cigarette stompies. So long as he didn’t mess with the radio. We pumped it up on Radio Five and danced to Guns n’ Roses, Pearl Jam, the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Then we changed the station and Dumi taught me to dance like a Zulu, beat the floor with my feet, kick through the back into the sun. All those moves from the hills.

  It’s funny he needed me then to protect him. Now I’m the one whose gotto hide, so he can’t see what I turned into. In those days he was a dirty piccanin. Too black. Now he’s a hot shot, feeding skinny Africans. Getting bucks from fat politicians.

  Now it’s me who’s too white for the job.

  Too dirty to love.

  Dumi said sorry. That made it all solid. I dunno why, but that calms me down. Like I can trust my own mind, you know? On TV they interview some professor of forgiveness. Fran from Benoni stands up, asks what about Amy Biehl who got stabbed to death by some PAC kids. Her parents forgave them plus paid for their education. Later, two of the guys got bust for rape. So what good did forgiveness do? The professor says, ‘Forgiveness always heals you. But it doesn’t always heal the one who did wrong.’

  So, must I forgive Graham?

  I work in the rain. I try be careful who I go with, I don’t wanna hurt the kid. But I go jump after jump after jump. I dunno, like I’m tryna prove I’m still dirty.

  I fret about the forgiveness thing.

  I’m head to toe with a sports scientist. He’s into angles, all supple, you know? I pant and sigh so he thinks he’s fantastic. I can tell he needs stacks of praise to get to the finish line. The finches watch, twitter, ‘Ooh wee. Swee-tie.’ The others go, ‘Check-it-out-check-it-out.’

  Before he leaves he tells me it helps him to stay faithful to his wife. His pretty students try him out all the time. He says he’s gotto use will power every day to stay faithful. He says can he come back?

  ‘Ja, sure.’ Spare the students.

  Amy Biehl went to UCT. A cute little student, sliced to pieces, battered with bricks. And her parents forgave them. They understood.

  Must I now
try understand Graham?

  I know he grew up with his dad stuck to the TV, nicotine dripping off the ceiling. All dressed up with a good, clean, never-ending whiskey.

  ‘It’s clean, this spirit,’ Graham’s dad said to him.

  Graham told me all about it. His mom died of cervical cancer, for real. Real cancer. She told Graham’s dad she was sore, that sex hurt her insides. But he didn’t believe her, he said she was tryna trick him. He said the women must service the men. Still she complained, so he said, ‘Fine, doll, you don’t want it, I’ll get myself a servant like my father.’

  Graham said his grandpa was famous for it, even though Graham’s granny was helluva churchy. She put on a sweet face while he slept with the natives. So Graham’s dad threatened his mom with the same thing. She stuck it out, let him put it in. Carry on.

  That’s why he drank. Cause next minute she got galloping cancer and died. The old guy felt so guilty, Graham said. Got sloshed and remembered how she’d said it was sore, and how he’d said he’d get a Zulu girl instead. Funny, he drank to remember, not to forget. I know why, though. Cause if you take something to take the pain away, the truth’s a breeze.

  The next day when he was sober, Graham’s dad said stuff like, ‘Don’t let them trick you. Keep them on a tight leash. Remember who’s boss of the house.’

  Graham was, like, eight or nine.

  And when he was a teenager, his dad was a bitter old sod. Graham wasn’t allowed friends cause big boys were too noisy. Graham had to put headphones on his Springbok Hits while his old dad watched sport, draining his spirit, smoking up a nicotine ceiling.

  So Graham said he never, ever forced you to have sex with him, Ma. He said he didn’t wanna be like his dad. He said sex was only for showing love. With us he called it ‘making lush’. Sounded like grass cuttings from the lawn. If you put your hand in the pile it’s hot and itchy, it makes its own sweat. Graham got so hot and trembly, making lush like the grass.