After the faithful sports ou, I get back into my white Greenpeace t-shirt and my pink skirt from Pep. I found it dirt cheap on the girl’s rack. The rain takes a break, leaves a heavy, lead cloud on the mountain. Crispy Nora spots me turning the corner. She comes running, knobby bones covered in black rubber. A wetsuit with neon yellow panels. High rubber collar around her skraal neck, holding up her perm. She’s got no breasts, just a flat rubber chest. ‘Tess, guess what happened?’
Not a disaster, cause I can see the filling in her eye tooth, and her brown eyes shoot sparks. ‘Madeleine’s husband came back yesterday.’
Happiness squeezes like a big fat hug.
‘And guess what? He brought her daughter. The one from the war.’
The shock makes me wanna wee. My arms and legs go weak and silly, like it’s me who got my daughter back.
‘Wow.’
‘Yesterday.’
Behind her, the string bean Buddha waits with his dog on a wind out leash. He’s got a boogie board under his arm. Behind him, her boys carry one flipper each.
‘I had the board, but Arch bought me this suit and some flippers.’
Nora’s tripping on flippin life.
‘That’s a miracle,’ I say.
But I mean about Madeleine.
Madeleine’s got her daughter. Crispy’s got a new rubber suit. I get Hanif.
When his van turns in, I jump in the bush. There where the No Dumping sign gives people the idea to dump their junk. Hanif circles the block. I stare at someone’s old, brown flower bouquets, maybe from hospital. Dog shit, soggy from the rain. A ripped curtain, brick orange. A photo album, blonde girl on the cover. Safyr Bleu eyes, a white sun hat. The kind of picture that makes your family photos look ugly. I check inside. It’s empty, ruined by water. I’m crouching among other people’s waste, he gets out the bloody van.
‘Tess!’
Like he’s calling a lost dog.
‘Tess, come out.’
I sit tight.
‘Tess, I can see you.’
I stand up.
‘What? I needed a leak.’
He won’t come to the house, says it’s too obvious. He bitches all the way about how it’s a public holiday and he’s gotto work. He pats my knee. ‘Same as you. But we’ve got to squeeze in some time to have fun.’
I stay hard as stone, ‘Sorry to tell you, but this is work.’
He takes me into the graveyard on the M5. Not the nice grassy one I went to with Princess, the budget one in the dunes. I turn my back to him. It’s bad enough his willy nudging the child, I don’t wanna see his face. I hate him for not knowing, but I’d flippin kill to keep the secret. I face the grave of one of the guys who got killed for houses. That time some Vrygronders thought the others were creaming the housing money. This oke Billy whose grave we’re parked on, maybe he was the one who was crossing the dunes in the dark. On the way to have supper with his mother, Annie said. They stabbed him in the heart, in the sand. Someone’s left wild lavender and tiny pink fynbos flowers in a plastic Fanta Orange bottom. A wooden cross painted white. Hanif holds onto my stomach for grip. I pick his fingers off, push them away. How dare he.
Hanif leaves me with dead Billy.
There’s a scrawny kid selling flowers at the entrance. The flowers cheer for the bloody rain, but the boy’s pathetic in his black plastic bag, his hair all wet. A little packed lunch on a rock. He’s playing with something inside a sack.
‘What you got?’
He takes a long time to look at me, speaks slowly, still faraway.
‘Sweetpeas, wisterias, ten rand a bunch.’
‘No, man, in your sack.’
He grins. ‘A Gameboy.’ He checks around. ‘I’m hiding it from the robbers.’
‘Whoo-oo. Paying tax to the taxman, Tessa-tjie?’ It’s Keith, alone in the bushes. There’s no sign of Aisha on the road. Only Natasha, doing hand signs, telling the traffic, Do a u-ey and give me a try.
‘Where’s Natasha’s oke?’ I ask.
‘Pollsmoor for housebreaking.’
‘Ha. Nice break for her.’
‘I’m gonna tell him.’
‘Tell him. Aisha on a jump?’
‘Uh-uh. I’m watching Natasha for Patrick now. You want me to watch you? You can make three times the marcha?’
‘No way.’
As I walk away, Keith shouts, ‘You must pasop on your own. The psychos’ll get you.’
I just keep walking. Natasha hardly ever talks to me, but as I pass her she says, ‘You heard about Aisha?’
‘What.’
Natasha’s in red dungarees, you can’t see how skinny she is.
‘Some ou burnt her tits.’
‘No-o, man!’
‘S’true. With a hot steel.’
‘No, man. God.’
She undoes her dungaree strap, offers her whole breast to a white guy in a Venture. ‘They caught the ou.’
‘What?’
‘Ja, there was a witness. But they let him go again.’
‘Why?’
‘He picked up Aisha and took her to his maats who were having a braai.
’ ‘Ag no, man.’
‘One of the maats couldn’t take it. He told the cops. But the others all said they saw nothing. So the cops said, just lossit.
Los the charge.’
‘Where’s she now?’
‘Still in hospital.’
‘Ow.’
‘It was bad. But that one ou paid for a skin dinges. They cut some skin from her arse, here.’ She slaps her skinny bum. ‘She was lucky.’
A spark in her eyes. The guy in the white Venture is back. My skin suddenly feels helluva thin. I sit down on the pavement for a bit, the traffic barreling right through my brain. I sit there, my skin thin, thin. Thinking how they laid Aisha down at the braai. A winter burning. Spitting chops on the grill. Some pig branded her while she screamed. They must’ve had their music on high, maybe opened their car boots, opened the doors, tuned in to the same radio station.
Geez, I’ve gotto get cover from the cars, charging right through the bones of my skull. Voom. Voom. Missile flippin swipes.
Funny, Aisha’s burning was a warning.
I go home early, only halfway through the day. Buy Portuguese sardines, personal avos. Walk the pavilion bridge. Think how I’d like to lie with my back in the sand. The cloud’s got whiter, lighter, it filters the sun. Makes a wedding sun, you know, a yellow crêpe paper sun that tints white roses yellow. Turns blue stained glass into green. I remember that from your wedding, Ma. Even though I was only two. I was so glad Graham was gonna be my dad.
All I know about my real dad is what you told me, Ma. He was a pom. A clever pom, you said. Creative. Cruising through with his guitar. He wrote his own blues music. Touring faraway little places till he was ready to handle fame. Then he was gonna launch in London. At least you told me the truth, Ma. I’m glad you didn’t lie. You watched him play at the Lark Inn at J-Bay. He was gone the next day in his red Combi, you said. About a month after the dry white made you bonk him on the rocks, he got caught in a rip tide and drowned. Somewhere near Mossel Bay. That’s like, three hours from here. The same sea as this sea. I’ve got a granny in England, but she doesn’t even know it.
I lock the gate cause I just wanna be alone and get my mind straight. Stop thinking all I’ve got is a kid they can rape. And a thin skin to burn. Hot metal burn like Aisha.
It’s lucky I heard about Aisha. It’s lucky I went home scared. I’m halfway through the sardines when I hear someone shout, ‘Tess! Tess!’
It’s Josie.
‘Tess!’
Shit. Leave me alone.
‘Tessie!’
I can’t resist. It’s what Angie calls me.
Josie’s upside down over the garden wall, her legs still on the other side. But suddenly her hanging grin’s gone. I see her fright as she slides back, her fingers tryna grip the edge of the wall. I rip open the gate.
It’s Evil.
He’s got both arms round Josie, crunching her into a bundle. He kicks her into a black car. I grab for her, but the door slams on my fingers. Crack! I scream. The same sore fingers from Crispy’s gate. He shoves me away, my fingers pull out. The driver’s door is buckled from a crash, he’s gotto go round to the other side. I try Josie’s door. It’s locked. I chase him, latch on. An elbow in the nose. Blood pours so red Ma, think of the red of Angie’s rosettes. He opens the door, chucks himself in. I go in after him. Don’t care. I chop him, chop him with my hands, I feel no pain.
His gun in my face.
‘Get out.’
‘Take me.’
‘Voetsek.’
‘Take me, rather.’
On the back seat, Josie’s knees are up. Her arms over her face.
‘Get out, I’ll kill you.’
‘No. No. No.’
He makes a promise. ‘I’ll take you. I’ll take you and kill you.’
He drives. Ford Escort. One hand on the wheel. The gun in my armpit. I’m not moving. And I’m not leaving. That’s all I know. He smashes the gears through the stop streets. Takes the corners wide. Blue lights, blue lights are all I wanna see. But there are only oranges for sale, the seller not looking. We grind through the orange light. We nearly crash at Sunrise circle, a lady in a High Ace with a Twins On Board sticker. I try tell her with my face, Girl On Board. Gun In Armpit. But she’s blind, still tryna shake off death. Josie’s stopped crying, just sniffs wet. I wait for the gun to blast off my arm as we jerk, jolt, over a rough track into the bush. He lets the car stall. Climbs into the back, gun at my bleeding nose.
‘Hold your hands out,’ he says to Josie. He’s calm, but his chest is rasping that mandrax rasp. ‘Else I’ll kill your ma’s friend.’
This guy’s an expert. Whips electrical cord round Josie’s wrists. I wait, the gun like The Fly on my nose. He keeps his eyes on me, lies the gun on his lap while he ties some knots. Then rams Josie’s lips with it, ‘Give me your feet.’
She keeps her knees together, tight-tight, lifts her legs. He wraps cord round her ankles.
He puts his gun down again to tie the last knots. I dive for it, dive for his groin. But he catches my arms, knots them so they scream at the elbows. I’m so sore I can’t breathe, but Josie screams for me. I get my foot to the hooter, a flippin contortionist. The hooter farts through the quiet, makes him crack, lose his temper. He chucks open my door, shoves me out. Lands on top of me. Kicks.
‘Move it!’
I battle to get up. He kicks the back of my calves to get my legs to move. ‘Move it, move it, vokken bitch.’
Gets me to a tree, the gun deep in my spine. He walks backwards to the car. Shouts, ‘Move, I’ll put a bullet in your back.’
He comes back with cord. Ties my hands the other side of the tree. ‘White girl,’ he growls. Comes up behind me. His teeth sink in, pop my flesh. I shriek as he bites my back open. ‘Shut up, bitch,’ he breaks into my skin again, bites through blood vessels, bites into muscle with his strong prison teeth. Cause the bad gangsters get mandrax and toothpaste, Ma, from the wardens.
No one can hear, the Port Jackson just sucks up my screaming. Just like Bonita, savaged by a hyena. I blubber into the bark, terrified from caveman times, I swear. And from twenty years ago, Graham in my neck, showing his teeth, not biting, Just ‘Nnnngh’ from behind. Evil ties me to the tree, in case I run. But I wouldn’t leave Josie. Never.
‘Leave her, leave her,’ I cry into the tree.
He puts the gun down. Rips my pink skirt. Does it from behind. Oh God. I cry into the tree as he splits the lining. Feels like a steel pole but it’s only his penis, jamming, shredding. When I scream he hits me on the back of my head. Crunch of nose. More red to run. He grunts like a buffalo. Tears something there, cuts me up. My heart is chopped liver. I try make space for my belly. The baby, thrown against the windscreen, balled up, trusting me to live. Trusting me to keep her safe.
When he’s grunted his sludge he wants to break me up more. I hear him stumble to the car. Roll my eyes to the side to watch. Pull back my hips to give the baby some space. He wipes his mouth, fixes his pants. The gun on the ground. When I see what he brings back from the boot I start groaning. The baby. She’s dead. She’s dead if he breaks up my brain with that Gorilla bar.
He swings the heavy metal. The sky falls on my head, I swear. Feels like bricks, the whole of False Bay Holiday. I go lights out. Wake up with him swinging it back up. But it doesn’t come down. It can’t cause there’s a girl hanging on it. It’s Josie, little thing, hanging on like it’s rodeo. Her legs loose from the electrical cord. All stripey, her skin dented in red coils. She’s screaming, ‘Mamie, Mamie, Mamie,’ like she’s saving her own mom. He rips it away. She flies off, a striped cat, onto the dirt track. He hits her once, a bone breaking blow. She screams a sound that burns my brain shut, ‘Mamie-e-e-e!’
I can’t care anymore.
He lifts the bar, I hear him suck air.
‘NO-O! NO-O!’ It’s me roaring. ‘NO-O!’
He’s gonna kill Josie.
You’re never gonna believe this, Ma. It’s like a movie on TV. I swear. This drumming comes from under the ground. Evil turns, brings the bar down sideways. Gets the side of Josie’s head. Josie cries under the drumming. I think it’s the blood in my head from the horror of Josie, but the earth is beating, closer, louder, drumming over Evil’s screech. He sounds like a flippin woman. He slams into me, falls sideways. A huge, red beast passes. Something cuts like glass across my arm. The horse goes into a swerve. Her legs buckle, spray up white sand. But she springs back onto her legs, saliva shooting from her metal bit. Lennie rides. I swear. Lennie rides the red horse. I’m not lying hey, it’s like a movie. He charges, pounds right over Evil, hammers him into the white sand. Reins tight down the sides of Pienkie’s neck. Legs grown right into Pienkie’s belly.
Evil’s so sore he can’t get up. He tries to crawl into the bush. He crawls, holding his ribs, but Lennie’s got a whip. A Port Jackson branch, stripped off. Lennie grips on the mane, hangs right off. Whips Evil. Whips him. Makes Evil screech. Lennie herds Evil towards his car. Evil falls flat, but Lennie wheels the horse. The horse wild with flippin catastrophe. Blind, buckling on the corner again. Shoots her hooves after her head. Spit floats on the air. She pulps Evil so he bleeds somewhere in his face. Evil staggers back up, claws into the car.
Lennie stays on the horse.
He’s hard on Josie. ‘Untie Tess.’
‘Mamieee.’
‘No mamie! Do it.’
Josie’s sobbing.
‘Don’t cry now!’
Out the corner of my eye, I see white in the bush. It’s the white mare from the day of the races. She watches with big, still eyes. Her baby snorts, backs into her. Except he’s big now, her baby. Nearly her size. Josie lets her body fall onto mine. Presses her face into my back.
Lennie talks hard, ‘Untie her, quickly.’
She puts her arms round the tree, tries to untie from this side.
‘Go around!’
She looks into my eyes from the other side. Her ear’s half hanging off.
‘Tell him the gun’s on the ground,’ I say. ‘Here behind me.’
She points, scared, like it might go off. ‘The gun. The gun.’
Lennie sees it, but he’s not gonna touch it.
‘Thank you Josie,’ I whisper while she battles with the knots.
‘Thank you for saving me, baby.’
‘Get to the road! Both of you!’ Lennie’s shit scared.
‘Walk. Walk!’ A hysterical trainer.
We stumble together towards the sound of cars. Follow the hoofprints in the sand. Relief like a beautiful, beautiful drug floods my womb. We walk, watch those prints, those small sinkholes bringing a weak man on a bad horse. Flippin weedy superhero.
I hold Josie’s arm, like we’re going down the aisle. Tryna think, is the baby breathing? Think, I’ve got blood for her, I’ve got food. Try remember my stand
ard eight biology. I’ve got a heated pool. A life rope tied to her. Let her live, let her live. Josie and me walk down the aisle.
A woman picks us up in a dark blue Audi. Knotty hair, big arthritis knuckles on the steering. A frown line between her eyes. I hold Josie’s head against my chest, careful of her ear. I dunno why, but I say, ‘We need to go to the sea.’
The woman’s tryna stay calm, but she’s hyperventilating.
‘Okay … I’ll just get you somewhere safe first.’ Buying time. Her face nearly folded in half, down her frown line. She doesn’t ask what happened. Just tells us she’s on her way to swim at Fish Hoek. Burns up the tar. At the police station she gives me her old toweling robe. I walk into the charge office like a wornout housewife. Ragged robe and wounds to go with it. Josie bleeding down her neck. They radio Hanif’s van, tell him where to find a horse, a gun, two men in the bush.
This big woman bursts in. Her fringe curled in. Her cheeks like two shining moons. ‘Chantal Meyer,’ she tells the whole station, ‘Lennie’s wife.’
The mother of mothers, I swear. She fills up the charge office, makes herself big. Fights for us. Her breasts float up, her arms lift at her sides, her black hair rises up out of her scalp. ‘They must see the state doctor. You must take them in the van.’
Constable Chandler says, ‘They can see Doctor Barnard around the corner. He’ll come after hours.’
‘No. They must see a special doctor. For the case. They must make a case.’
A sour white cop comes from inside. ‘She’s a prostitute.’ I stare at him. Ja, he’s the big boss. The station commander, tryna turf us out. Me shivering like I’ve been for a winter swim. Josie touching blood with a finger. Staring at it like it rained down from the roof. I keep squeezing her hard.
Chantal feels rocks for his rank. ‘It’s in the law. They must see a special doctor for the case.’
‘Wynberg’s the closest, if he’s not off. It’s Ascension Day.’
‘Ascension Day?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tell that to the rapist.’
Whiplash Page 24