Whiplash

by Tracey Farren

‘It’s old. It’s a remix,’ I said. But they weren’t listening.

  Graham used to love that Blondie chick.

  Madeleine took Sharonne down to the studio. It was time for the first Mother City practice, the new Saturday afternoon class. But they didn’t do belly. They lit candles for us in the day. They held hands and prayed. Phyllis said they lit all the candles and all the cats came.

  I swear Draincleaner would be stoked, cause after Evil, I think I get filled with the Spirit. Maybe it was the women praying. Maybe it was the baby in my belly. I didn’t know I was filled, till I find myself tryna teach Josie and Sharonne. Not with words. Just with peace.

  Bonita comes home with a plug with two prongs, plus news from the police. ‘No bail for Merrick. They’re making him sit.’ The girls check her out, confused. She says, ‘He’s locked up in Pollsmoor.’

  Geez. We all lighten up. The girls play Musica’s CDs nonstop.

  Chicks only. Avril Lavigne sings, like, The killing’s over Ma, hide my guns and stuff, I’m heading one way to heaven.

  I hang at the flat, trust Sharonne to feed the birds. I wanna be near Josie. Show her I’m fine. Show her I’m not a body. I don’t know what the hell I am, but you can kill me now and I’d still live. And I wanna show Sharonne it doesn’t matter what her mother is. This flesh and blood stuff means sweet nothing. I wanna show them both that even if we died we’d still be alive. Do you get what I mean, Ma? If we died, I dunno for sure what would be left over, but when you see a dead bird or a dead fish on the beach you know there’s still a ripple in the air, a flash of moving water that holds its place. I swear I believe in that Spirit now. It makes me wanna cry, I dunno why.

  My love of belly starts after the attack. Josie and Sharonne help babysit Genevieve. Me and Madeleine go to an evening class. The stitches are out, but I’m careful with my wounds. Careful my brain doesn’t unravel. I’m still a bit suspicious of dancing. Okay, it was the baby that whipped up all those dead memories, but I swear it was also the belly. It’s gotto be good though, cause look at Phyllis. She’s so flippin happy all the time. Now I wanna know why.

  I ask Phyllis straight out, ‘So what’s the point of dancing if our bodies don’t count?’

  ‘To celebrate.’

  ‘Celebrate what?’

  ‘What we are.’

  I know what’s coming.

  ‘The immortal, pure place inside us.’ Then, you know what she says? She says words from inside my own head. ‘We dance because no one can kill us. Not even ourselves.’

  I get this magic feeling in my heart. I know all this from the rape. I ripen like a flippin avo. Little pipsqueak inside me gets bigger and bigger. I’ve still got twig legs, but now my thighs really touch at the top. I put an elastic on my jeans button. And I’m dead careful. Protect the kid from jolts. I stick to my word, the road is history. Geez, I’m even careful of shopping trolleys coming too close. I grind away at redskin nuts in the loft, a pregnant ape. Ask the girls, ‘Have I got skins between my teeth?’

  They check my teeth, all serious. Show me exactly where. Bonita grills snoek with apricot jam in Madeleine’s oven, cause I’m five months, but frying makes me feel naar. I think it’s cause of the Haart pills, the one’s I’ve gotto take for Aids.

  And it rains avos, you won’t believe it. I dunno if it’s just because of Evil, but Hanif delivers a whole crate to the flat. A yellow plastic crate packed with live green things, pregnant bloody ovals from an old, dead guy. Hanif stands on the pavement at False Bay Holiday, tells us this old guy was up his ladder picking avos and he had a heart attack. When they got there, the old wife was lying outside with the corpse, staring up at the avos. She wouldn’t let the ambulance take him, kept saying, ‘The pears are ripe. The pears are ripe.’

  Hanif and the Pretoria policeman had to pick the avos so she’d let the body go. Her friend fetched her, took some of the avos for grief on toast. The rest Hanif’s tryna find a home for. Ha. Hanif drops avos off for his daughter. And he doesn’t even know it.

  A few days later, I swear, there’s a ripping whistle from the street. I know it. It’s him.

  It’s Athol.

  Kempton’s Hire. A film crew truck. A no hands cell set on his head. Belts and buckles, pouches everywhere. Tells me he’s the props manager on some movie. ‘I came to bring you avos.’

  Fingerless gloves, leather. A flippin high tech slave.

  ‘Why?’

  No sign of a sorry.

  ‘They’re from the market scene.’

  He unlocks the back. The truck stinks of dope.

  ‘What movie?’

  A bad tempered boy in the back. Boxes of shining avos stacked like pregnant emeralds. Skin begging to split. Give creamy green meat.

  He won’t answer straight. ‘It’s a TV movie.’

  ‘I gave your TV to the beach preacher.’

  He goes tense, stares at the sea between Blu Bottle and the station subway. Says, ‘We want to go straight to the wrap party.’

  ‘I’ll take a few.’

  Unloads six boxes onto the pavement. We call Henrique, Marie the car guard and Honorius. We lug six boxes up the stairs. As Athol goes, I swear, he gives me a sorry look. And when I crack a smile, some part of him flies up. I can nearly see it, it’s like a quiver in the air. I also see the sign stuck to the side of the cab with masking tape. ‘Snow White.’

  A box for everyone. Bloody food aid. Avo on white toast, up on the balcony. I’m balancing on my broken wall, and some avo falls off my slice. A seagull swipes down, gets it before it hits the tar.

  ‘Sheez.’

  ‘They even eat twenty cent pieces,’ says Sharonne.

  ‘How d’you know?’

  Sharonne busts Josie with her eyes. Josie blushes.

  ‘Sis, Josie, man.’ I don’t smile. Feel sorry for the seagulls who swallowed her coins.

  Bonita makes money for us. The kids go to school, I hang next door with Madeleine and them. Wait for the first, half useless Aids results. When Josie comes home, I start telling her with words. About how there’s something in us he couldn’t kill. How cool she was to hang on the Gorilla bar. She says, ‘I never ever want to have sex.’

  ‘That wasn’t sex, Josie. That was evil.’

  ‘I don’t ever want a boy to stick his thing …’ She presses her eyes like she’s tryna make the picture disappear.

  ‘Sex feels nice if you love someone.’ I’m making stuff up. Sex’s always been flippin guilty. ‘Sex’s for showing love.’ I grab out of thin air, ‘Like me and Athol.’

  ‘Snow White?’

  ‘Ja.’

  I only really get it when I tell Josie, ‘We loved each other.’

  Sheez, that puts me on a high. You see, I have had a real relationship.

  Josie wet her bed twice, dreaming Evil’s after her. Bonita and me get all stressed, then I get a brainwave. I take Josie with me, go feed the birds. We go into the cage, let the birds fly around. I tell her how I started weeing cause I was scared. Then I stopped weeing cause I was scared. I told her how you scared me on purpose Ma, saying the birds would fly in. But now I’m not scared anymore. Now I cry from my eyes if I need to. I make it into a joke. She laughs at me saying all this crazy stuff, standing there with the little birds brushing me with their wing tips, ag, like kisses. Gentle as anything, nothing like Lennie’s toenail. We fetch Lennie’s horse from the floor of the cage. Wash off the finch shit. I tell Josie it’s the same horse that saved her. So she sleeps with it and now she’s nice and dry at night.

  One morning Josie’s making bompies with Madeleine. I’m painting Genevieve’s nails silver with this polish her dad bought at Joburg station. Geez, she made a mess of her nails on the train. Henrique shouts, ‘Tessie, phone!’

  Everyone calls me Tessie now.

  Genevieve follows me to the phone. Waits with the silver polish.

  ‘Tess, I’ve called so many times.’

  I nearly die. It’s Dumi.

  ‘No one told me.’


  ‘I’ve phoned about five times. I got your number from Angie. Well, first I found your mom, then she gave me Angie’s number.’

  ‘You phoned my mom?’

  ‘Yes. But she didn’t know anything about you.’

  An ugly scoff comes up, ‘She doesn’t.’

  ‘So …’

  He’s stuck. Genevieve gives up on me. Stands there painting her own nails. Silver all over her fingers again.

  ‘So … what did my mom say?’

  ‘Well, she asked me about you.’

  ‘So what did you say?’

  ‘What could I say except that you’re still in Cape Town, and working as a dancer.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She said …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She said you’re probably a stripper.’

  Pain volts through me, into the concrete floor. I wanna chuck the phone down. ‘I’m a prostitute.’

  Silence.

  I hang up the phone.

  But the pain moves back up from the floor, forces my arm up. I pick the phone up.

  ‘Tess?’

  ‘Dumi?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I was a prostitute.’

  ‘Okay. It’s okay.’

  ‘Now I’m pregnant.’

  ‘Is that good?’

  ‘Yes. Yes.’ Pride rides in my voice. ‘It’s coming in October.’

  ‘Hey, maybe on my birthday.’

  He flippin ties himself in, just like that. It gets worse. He says, ‘Your birthday’s in … three week’s time.’

  I lose my breath. ‘How the hell do you remember?’

  ‘Hey, man. Like I said …’

  That best friend thing whispers between us.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  I think he means bucks.

  ‘I mean, do you need a place to stay?’

  I’m so flippin thrown I can’t think straight. I just say lots and lots of no’s.

  ‘No, no, I’m okay.’

  ‘I’ve got a big flat in Kloof Street …’ ‘No, no, I’ve got a place.’

  ‘I can help you …’ ‘No, no I’m fine.’

  ‘Can I come and see you?’

  ‘No!’

  Genevieve gets upset, squeezes me, stains me with flippin silver.

  Softer, ‘It’s really fine, thanks.’

  He’s still tryna say, ‘But … but …’ Saying he wants to come see me. I block him with, ‘Thank you, bye, thank you, bye.’ I get rid of him, but I’m amazed at my own sweet voice, my own sweet feeling.

  At the flat, Josie’s in the middle of bompies. She’s staring at the TV, horror in her eyes. It’s a music video, this chick going down on a guy, jerking her hips to the drum beat. I snap the TV off. ‘Don’t worry Josie. Sex is for love, not for sport. Don’t worry so much.’

  Lennie’s Chantal drives me and Josie to Simonstown. Bonita comes as a flippin nervous bodyguard. We go see Sonya, this lady from Legal Aid. She’s a small blonde chick with a high, high voice. But she knows her stuff. She looks at me. ‘We don’t know yet what he is going to plead. If he pleads not guilty, it has to go to trial. And I’m afraid in this country, women still have to prove that they didn’t ask to be raped. It’s ancient old law from nineteen voetsek. I’m afraid you have to appear with the perpetrator in the same room and describe exactly what he did to you.’

  Bonita shouts, ‘No, no, she’s a child!’

  I keep shaking my head. Sonya puts up a little hand. ‘Sorry. Not the children. At least we have made progress there.’ Bonita sits shivering a bit. Sonya rattles off about how if it goes to court, Josie can sit in a separate room. They’ll get a social worker to ask her the judge’s questions and tell the answers to a camera. It’ll be like Josie’s there, but she’s not.

  Bonita’s starts breathing out again. Me, I’m miserable, my new scar starts hurting on that hard chair.

  ‘Unfortunately …’ Sonya says. We all tense up. ‘If it goes to trial, they’ll need DNA results. And the forensic lab is so overloaded, it’s going to take about a year to get them.’

  Chantal blows up, ‘A year! They can’t wait …’ Sonya stops her with her soft hand. ‘The time might work for us. There are two factors that might persuade …’ She looks down for his name. ‘Evil,’ I say. Josie giggles. Sonya wants to smile, ‘… Merrick, to plead guilty and avoid a trial.’

  She says Merrick’s skipped bail for some other assault, so he’s already in shit. ‘We can offer to soften his sentence for breaching bail.’

  ‘Huh?’ Bonita doesn’t get it.

  ‘We can say to him, plead guilty to the rape and we will cut you some slack.’

  The room freezes up, big time. Sonya ignores it. Says, ‘His other incentive is that if he pleads guilty now, he can start serving his jail sentence immediately. If he waits for the DNA and the court case, he’ll sit for two years before …’

  Bonita freaks out, ‘Two years! Are they mad? How can they make us wait like that?’

  Two years with Merrick in my mind.

  Oh, God.

  Sonya’s like a nice receptionist with a stupid boss. ‘I’m so sorry that the justice system is so congested.’ She says to me, ‘I’m really very sorry,’ like she knows how horrible it all was, never mind I was a prostitute.

  A bit after that, Hanif catches me when I’m crossing the park. Follows me down the bank but can’t stop at the bottom. I laugh at him bending back, digging into the lawn with his shiny cop shoes. He’s all kind, like I’m human now. Like it’s not my job to be raped. He says he reckons Merrick’s buggered cause of all the witnesses, plus he’s got no chance with the doctor’s report. ‘My guess is that he’ll plead guilty.’

  Like I even asked what he thinks.

  ‘He’s one of those dangerous ous who doesn’t mind prison. It’s kak, but it’s easier than hustling on the street.’ Then he tells me, quiet, like the geezers from the bowling club have got supersonic ears, ‘You’re supposed to hear it from the doctor. He wants to see you on Tuesday for Aids counseling. They tested Merrick.’

  I know it before he says it.

  ‘He’s positive. But I saw the form. You and the baby are negative so far.’ His eyes burn with his own strange hope.

  I feel the grass blades through my sandals. The ground pushes up, my nerves count the flippin air molecules. ‘Jesus.’

  Salt air fills up my lungs. I let some out. ‘So far.’

  He nods.

  ‘Merrick’s positive?’ I ask, still tryna understand.

  He nods again.

  I say it like a fact, sure as that flippin mountain. ‘We are negative.’

  Hanif glances at my little tummy. Fiddles with the stud on his holster.

  ‘I can take you on Tuesday.’

  I stare at him till he gets blood in his cheeks and frowns down at Randall and Muffy outside Blu Bottle, bergies kissing drunk.

  ‘No, don’t worry.’

  The bastard’s guessed it’s his baby.

  Annie phoned when I was out. Marie the car guard wrote ‘Annee’ and a Joburg number on the back of a match box. I’ll call back later when I’ve got some change. Me and Josie go feed the birds. We sit still as statues on the back stoep, watch the wild birds. ‘They want to be in the cage,’ she says.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I think they want a home.’

  I hug her tight, give her some of Darryl’s peanut butter on a spoon. But it gets me fretting. What am I gonna do with the baby? I don’t have a home.

  I’m a ragged gull, not a flippin tame finch.

  Next day, I’m in Shoprite. I see a girl with smooth, creamy knees and one of those vests with a built in bra. Looks like Muizenberg’s turning yuppie. She’s got a thin gold chain round her neck. Bright eyes and proper highlights. Pushing a trolley in square office heels. Round calves from ballet or those step up things at the gym. In her trolley, I swear, car wax. Fresh orange juice with real fruit cells. A bunch of real coriander and a new photo album with
a parrot on the cover. The only thing missing is popup tissues. I bet she’s got a nice boyfriend who’s got lots of clean, white socks. Maybe he calls her Love. Me, I live with the starlings, cormorants, the geese from Egypt. Gulls from the sea. All of them tough. Loud, with slang and bad accents. They fight for old bait, scream like bergies for bits of bread. Swallow coins by accident. I fret about Josie, what she said. Kids need a home. They need cleaning and feeding. A nice, safe cage. And I’m more of a gull than a finch.

  I tell Madeleine I’ll meet her down at belly. I go early on purpose.

  When Phyllis sees me, she chucks up her hands. ‘Thank you,’ she says, to no one. Dead glad to see me. We go through the kitchen, past lentils and tomatoes bubbling in a pot. Past a door with the cute tennis coach lying on a couch. I wave, but my timing’s way out. The TV goes, ‘In this wind he’s going to have to drive hard to get it on the green.’

  In the courtyard the tinkle of falling water hushes the TV. The mosaic I always see through the door is a pottery cat, shattered and stuck together again. A normal old house cat with fluff on its chin, washing itself with a paw. A bird brushes the cat with pure white wings. Either a very slack cat or a very dumb bird.

  ‘Your name’s not on the list. Are you dancing in the Mother City? We’re getting five hundred rand each.’ Geez, she must be used to doing deals with God.

  I look down at my belly. ‘It’ll be big.’

  ‘It will be beautiful. It will show everyone what belly dancing’s about.’

  I nod, wings in my tummy. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Hallelujah!’ But she says it like an unholy person, no chance of dipping into the fountain and baptising me.

  ‘Sheez, I’m nervous already.’

  She hugs me, laughing. ‘To dance? After what you’ve been through?’

  ‘Phyllis?’

  She goes quiet, like she’s been waiting.

  ‘What am I gonna do with this baby?’

  She says words so strange then, it’s like they’re not really English.

  ‘You will do the right thing.’

  ‘And what must I do with my past?’

  Phyllis waits like she’s listening to God or someone. ‘You didn’t know what you were. That’s why you’re here.’

  ‘Where?’