Whiplash

by Tracey Farren

  She smiles, ‘On earth.’

  I frown. She says things I know from deep in my brain. ‘You’re here to remember that you’re part of God. His holy daughter.’ Tears flippin ambush me, jump out before I can stop them. Graham didn’t treat me holy. Nor the men who rented me. Hit me, kicked me, bit me.

  Phyllis slides close, tucks me under her arm. ‘Your Madeleine taught me that. You can’t leave God, even if you try. When I was still in the order she looked at my habit and she saw Christian judgment. She could hardly speak English then, but Madeleine said to me that if she had to kill me right then, God would ignore her sin. Oh, she made me scared.’

  A scared Phyllis makes me giggle.

  ‘I watched her carefully.’ Phyllis laughs with me. A huge tabby jumps on the wall. Sits close, acts cool. ‘Madeleine has seen terrible things. It is as if she died in that country and saw the truth.’

  I dunno why, but I think of you then, Ma, looking for truth in your horror novels.

  Phyllis strokes the cool cat. It arches its neck, lifts up into her touch. I try tell Phyllis about Graham. I tell her about Graham’s dad and Graham’s mom. And you, who loved dying. But I can’t go all the way. I say, ‘He didn’t wanna be like his dad.’ I take a deep breath. ‘He didn’t wanna force my mom to have sex.’ It’s as close I’m gonna get, but the truth twists my voice, leaks out.

  Phyllis lets Graham’s story hang there, the water rinsing and rinsing over and over. After a while she says, ‘He made a terrible, terrible mistake.’

  But something in me stays rock hard. All my life a flippin sex toy.

  ‘Tess, only a deluded person would hurt a child. Someone who believes he is human refuse.’

  My whole flippin life.

  Phyllis keeps talking, gentle, ‘But you’re lucky, my love. You know what you are now.’

  The water behind us listening, rinsing.

  ‘Now you can laugh.’ Phyllis smiles. ‘It’s madness, this place.’

  I croak, ‘What place?’

  She smiles. ‘This earth.’

  Geez.

  Then Phyllis tells me her worst, worst story, and all I wanna do is laugh. She says, ‘My awakening also came through a bad man.’ There in her tinkling courtyard with cats sliding over the tiles. A white kitten bouncing on straight legs, Phyllis gives me her whole, long, near death story. She was driving a whole herd of lawnmowers on the back of a truck to the Catholic Institute. They had, like runways of grass and the nuns, I swear, had to keep it slick. I can just see bits of grass hanging off their eyebrows, making them itchy under their habits, staining their veils. Passing each other, maybe rolling their eyes, as they march down the grass. Anyway, a tyre burst on the truck and Phyllis didn’t have her seat belt on. She went straight through the windscreen and got chucked far from the truck. She ended up in a ditch, on her back. Paralysed.

  Some little kids arrived but they didn’t see Phyllis, so they pulled the cords on the mowers and rode off into the bloody sunset. The funny go carts caught the eye of this guy going past. He hung over Phyllis. A bad haircut she says, a big red face, hanging over her.

  ‘I think I’ve broken my back,’ she whispered.

  I’m waiting for a rape or something, but no. Phyllis says this oke called for help on his cell. Told them there’s a nun in a ditch with a broken back. Then he tuned her, ‘Sorry, but I’m taking the last four mowers. My garden service went bang last year. I need them,’ he said, ‘to start up again.’

  ‘I was saved by a lawnmower thief,’ Phyllis says, some giggles popping in her.

  I laugh like hell. Geez. Hide your daughters from the bad, bad man. She’s clueless about misery, this chick. A real sheltered kid. I mean, her lawnmower man’s a hundred percent honey compared to Graham. Or Merrick.

  She says she got Madeleine’s whole meaning when she was lying in the ditch. She says she started laughing inside. She couldn’t laugh out loud, cause of her broken back, but she says she laughed deep inside about her whole life. How she gave up dancing to become a nun. How she battled at the convent, so stiff, so still. Fighting nasty thoughts out of her head. Thoughts of slapping, kicking, spitting on the sisters in charge. Lekker violent thoughts. Then she crashed the truck and her disaster was a miracle for some oke. She lay there with a split in her spine and saw that everything was just flippin funny. She looked up at the sky and she saw the world was swirling and rushing and dripping.

  ‘Do you know what the element of the belly chakra is?’

  ‘Uh-uh.’

  ‘Water.’

  ‘I saw the whole world was fluid, not solid. And there were no spaces between anything.’

  Phyllis had a huge back op. They welded bones together so she can’t do back bends. But she can do what she likes with her hips. She says she danced to get strong. And to say no to the whole sin thing. She danced to say stuff off with her hips.

  ‘I saw how people hate themselves, so what do they do? They attack. It’s insane! The truth is, we are made of love.’

  I think hard. Some hope dances in me. I notice that someone’s painted ivory light between the blades of the suicide gull.

  ‘So what’s not crazy?’

  ‘The only sane thing is our souls. We can check with the love in us, ask, what am I? What must I do?’

  I see what she’s tryna say. The soul is real. The rest is dicey.

  ‘Our souls always know.’

  ‘What?’

  She stands up, strokes my head like she’s tryna iron me smooth. She keeps talking, keeps stroking my crazy brain. ‘To see through sin. To work for love. I left the convent because I wanted to see love working between people. Not just feel it in the damn air around me when I prayed.’

  When she talks about love I know it’s the silk of the veil kind of love, not the fanny. I tease her cause I’m shy, ‘And mess around with a tennis coach.’ She laughs hard enough to crack the concrete banks of her water feature. She lifts praying hands to the sky. ‘Thank God I found out that sex is to celebrate.’

  Geez, any excuse to celebrate with this chick.

  In the dance class we work on a fast drumming piece for the concert. We leave our veils on the floor, tuck our t-shirts in our bras. Work on pure technique. It’s hard, it’s hectic, tryna get our movements sharp. We drum with our bones, every beat a blow. Camel walks, up-drop-up. Figure of eights, drop-drop-drop. With our hips, shik, shik, whiplash, whip. When we’re wet with sweat, sticking our fingers in the stitches in our ribs, Phyllis says, ‘Okay, we’re going to go slow. We’ll start with our arms and bring in some veils … Remember, move from the breast bone, keep your arms light.’

  I’m like a skollie bird, Ma. But just put me in the air. Look straight up, as I fly over. My whiteness will stun you. You won’t believe your eyes when you see my wingspan. You’ll think, I never knew.

  I’ll glide right over your head and you’ll see my virgin belly. Its softness will take your breath away.

  ‘Stretch your wings,’ says Phyllis, ‘through the walls.’

  It’s my soul you’ll see when you see my wingspan and you’ll think, I never knew.

  I call the number Annie left. She thanks me a hundred times for looking after the finches. ‘We’re coming home soon. Nou’s ek homesick!’

  It’s me she’s missing, cause I can feel a knot pulling in my own heart. I tell her the whole deal. Talk fast cause the phone time’s ticking.

  ‘I’m pregnant. I’ve given up sex work. I’m gonna dance full time.’

  ‘Vok!’ She’s blown away. ‘Hemel. You keeping it?’

  ‘Ja.’

  ‘Vok. I wanna see you dance.’

  That Sunday, Avril’s singing cheeky, like, If you try build a wall, I’ll just grow up tall, if you try and trap me, I’ll run till I’m free, and the phone rings for me. This time it’s Angie. For real. Joy rips through my body, shreds me right there.

  ‘Happy Birthday.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t tell me you forgot.’

&n
bsp; I can only stand there and laugh. My faraway sister more switched on than me. ‘I’ve just been really busy.’

  Angie’s all nervous, asks like she doesn’t wanna know. ‘With what?’

  ‘Rehearsing. I’m dancing in a concert.’

  ‘Oh.’ Angie’s voice is all thin, like she doesn’t believe me.

  It starts sounding like a lie, even to me.

  Ange strikes me down, just by being nice.

  In the flat, I swear, Avril sings about brothers and sisters. How they should stick together, tell the world to go jump. I switch her off, say, ‘I just wanna listen to the radio for a bit.’

  But it doesn’t help. The radio says it’s freedom day in America. The fourth of July, more reasons to bomb the Arabs. More reason for Angie to think I’m a rubbish.

  I don’t wanna be in the world.

  I hate this place. This world just hurts.

  I try it then. What Phyllis said. I try take a quick trip to my soul.

  I ask, ‘What must I do?’

  Shit, it’s dangerous, cause I end up blurting, ‘It’s my birthday.’ Everyone goes dead quiet, then screeches in panic. They come kiss me, the girls and Bonita. Clumsy hugs.

  Damn Angie for not believing.

  Next thing I say, ‘I’m gonna make us all pancakes.’

  There’s half a bag of flour. Behind me, Bonita gets into a flap. Chucks stuff out of a handbag, sends words out the side of her mouth. Sharonne runs out, comes back, something stuffed in her pocket. The girls go, ‘Ssh. Ssh,’ behind me. Josie blocks out Sharonne while Sharonne rolls something in a scrap of Madeleine’s purple cloth.

  I open it slowly.

  ‘Wow.’ It’s called Princess Grace. I spray some on my wrists. It smells like toilet spray. ‘Lovely.’

  I go up to Princess, who’s got a black Bad Boy cap on her head. Put my wrist to her nose, make the girls laugh. The other present is bright red lipstick. Brand new. Sharonne says, ‘From the factory shop. Ma wouldn’t let me wear it.’

  ‘Too red.’ Bonita gives me the eye to get her meaning. ‘But it’s fine for you.’

  Sharonne gets all jumpy, tryna cover up. ‘Because you’re grown up and you’re blonde.’

  That’s when it hits me, shit. Sharonne knows I’m the same as her Ma.

  ‘Thanks, man.’

  Josie bosses me, tells me how to hold my mouth. Plasters me with lipstick. Next minute Madeleine comes in holding up little white things. ‘Happy Birthday Tessie!’

  Black eyes stuck on tiny velvet baby booties.

  ‘I was keeping them, but you must have them now.’

  ‘Aah, cuuute!’ Josie’s in love, but flippin fear bangs my chest. The black eyeballs roll as I nip the booties with my fingertips. ‘Thank you,’ floats somewhere in the air. I drop them on the trunk. No one dares touch them.

  We eat my pancakes with sugar. We leave the booties with their rolling eyes, go work the Sunday market. I sit with the rows and rows of sunglasses that Honorius bought home with his daughter. Madeleine’s relaxed enough now to let Genevieve go with me. She and Honorius are helping a friend move. The sun breaks out the clouds, squeals as it hits my red lips, probably. I wear a pair of the darkest, darkest shades. I think I’m hiding, but my lipstick’s a big stop sign. Middle of winter and everyone stops to try glasses. Whities ask me about UV protection.

  ‘Hey they’re twenty bucks. If you sit on them, it’s no loss.’ Funny, it works. They sell just as well as the calamari rings down the drag. I haven’t even got time to wipe greasy fingerprints off the shades.

  The girls leave all the bloody work to me. Sharonne cruises past with her surfer boy. They try on a hundred pairs. ‘You look so cool,’ she says to him. He says, ‘You look so hot.’

  Genevieve’s no hassle. She doesn’t move from the jewellery stall next door. She holds up a necklace to the sun, lets it spin. What’s she seeing, stars in the day? I give Sharonne some money from the kitty. ‘Buy it for her.’

  Josie buys pineapple rolled in curry spice. I’m busy as shit but I watch her like a hawk. She bites into it, sunny yellow wedge stabbed on a sosatie stick, dusted with curry dust. I’m laughing at her scrunching her face up from the acid, when I feel the karate kick.

  One quick little kick, Wham! into the wall of my womb.

  The whole market goes silent, I swear. Just the sea and wash of water in my womb.

  Someone’s holding out notes and silvers.

  ‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God …’ I sound like a bloody American. The person pulls their hand back like a shot. I hold my tummy. Genevieve’s the closest. ‘Baby.’ I point at my stomach. ‘Baby.’ Show her a karate kick. Josie comes to see what’s happening. I tell her the baby kicked. She runs off to find Sharonne in the crowd, but I grab her, haul her back. ‘Uh-uh. Stay where I can see you.’

  She puts her hand there. There’s a kind of tightness, like it’s bunching up for another kick. But it relaxes, all innocent. Josie gets bored, but I hold her hand tight. ‘Wait, wait.’

  This kid’s for real. Knocking at the door.

  Oh my God.

  Waiting like that, listening, I ask, ‘What must I do?’

  You’ll never believe the relief. You’ll never believe the birds in my heart, thrashing. Flying bursts, right inside. On my birthday, Ma.

  Mom, you’ll never believe how amazing it feels when they get in.

  I sweep the shades off the table, into the bag. ‘Come, come.

  We’ve gotto go.’

  We jump into a taxi, me, Josie and Genevieve. With a striped refugee bag of glasses you can sit on. We get out near the Military Road lights. Some big kids on BMXs take us all the way to the house.

  Chantal’s there, gutting snoek in the garden. There where the horse rolled, I suppose. Long silver beauties, on newspaper. Glittering scales stick on the paper, sparkle on the grass. Their eyes still seeing water rushing past. Chantal’s slicing one down its spine with a flippin killer knife. Cats on her roof, crouched for a piece of the sea. She hugs me, her hands bloody like a surgeon’s. A couple of fish scales flash on her face. When she goes to hug Josie, Josie ducks. She’s spotted some horses in the window, nose to tail on the sill. She goes inside. I go try call her out cause she’s not invited, but Chantal says, ‘It’s alright, it’s alright.’

  On top of their TV I see a flippin fantastic copy of Chantal. Hands on her knees, breasts hanging inside her dress. Feet planted. Humongous legs. Watching, like that time I went swimming. He made her a bodyguard or a bouncer. Guarding something, you know? A protector with a beautiful big bum.

  Josie starts up a herd of Lennie’s horses on the coffee table. Outside, Genevieve piles some copper coins on the fence pole. Doesn’t even glance at the kids who hang on their bikes, tryna figure us all out. I go watch Chantal, say, ‘Carry on. Don’t worry.’

  She laughs at the roof. ‘I have to finish because of the cats.’ She strips the stomach out the snoek. Gentle and smooth, like the fish can feel. Makes a nice pile of red insides. She slits the thin meat at the tail, finds the spine. I speak softly, so the BMX kids can’t hear. ‘I just came to ask, maybe you want my baby.

  You and Lennie.’

  The knife stops cutting.

  ‘I can’t look after her, and you guys … I trust you guys. You can have her forever. I just can’t look after her, I know I’ll make a stuff up.’

  Chantal stares like she can see under the sea.

  ‘She hasn’t got Aids. I know she hasn’t got Aids. The only thing is, I don’t know what colour she’ll come out. But the father is a good man, I promise. He’s good.’

  Chantal sinks onto her bum, next to the cut open fish, their insides in a pile, their sides smooth and white. She wipes her forehead, the bloody knife in her fingers. Her tears mix with the scales on her face. I dunno why she’s crying till she smiles at me through water, smiles like I’m a true blue angel. A good wife she says, ‘I’ll talk to Lennie.’

  Does she feed us that day! Us three pig out on bobo
tie with yellow rice and raisins. Then killer koeksusters, crispy, dripping syrup. Coffee. She tries to fatten the baby up in an hour. I do the karate kick for Chantal. She laughs, but it’s a silly, sobbing laugh. She can’t stop staring at my stomach. I think Genevieve gets it only then, cause she keeps tryna rub my tummy in circles. But she’s got too many rings and they scrape my skin, so I tell her, ‘Gently.’

  We’re all hyped on the way back. We groove together in the taxi.

  Next day Chantal and Lennie come to the flat to say, Yes, Yes, Yes! Lennie’s on my balcony wall, wringing his hands with gladness. Chantal sits up against me, ready to protect me from falling planes or something. They didn’t sleep last night, they say. But I swear the two of them have got flippin fireworks in their eyes. They’ll take her if she hasn’t got Aids. I tell them, ‘Don’t worry, I dunno why, but I know we didn’t get it. It’s just a miracle.’

  Chantal says, ‘But you will …’ ‘Ja, I’ll do the second test.’ I count on my fingers. ‘Next month.’ They’re dead, dead glad when I say we’ll have to do a contract to make them feel safe. Lennie says quickly, ‘Damien’s lawyer can do it.’

  It was already sorted in the middle of the night.

  It was meant to happen, I swear. Nearly everyone’s glad. I tell them the whole story, I go, ‘They’ve been trying for years and they really deserve a kid. I can’t keep it safe, I can’t.’ Madeleine nods, stares with her burnt eyes, tryna see behind my words. ‘I’m getting it together but I still don’t know if I’m coming or going.’ Madeleine gets my arm in a Chinese bangle, ‘You are going?’

  ‘No, no.’ I point at my brain. ‘Up here.’

  ‘Ohh.’ She nearly chews me up with her smile.

  The girls are the only ones who get upset.

  ‘Aah … Why?’ Josie looks like she might cry. Sharonne glances at Josie, thinks quick. ‘Can we visit?’

  Josie looks up all hopeful, like she was with the birds.

  ‘Um … I’ll ask. I’m sure they’ll say yes.’

  ‘Ja. Because we’ll be like sisters,’ says Josie.

  Shame. I think cause their dad’s got new kids that they’ve never met.

  Bonita just says, ‘Good, Tess. That’s good.’