by S. L. Grey
‘It’s fine. I need to go now. My associate is expecting me.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Ryan says to Duvenhage’s back. ‘I’m glad it’s all sorted out, sir.’ He sighs with relief as Duvenhage goes and notices Sybil Fontein staring at him. He smiles at her and heads out of the administration wing and towards the staff room, where he should be helping Thulani clean.
It’s just after one, the last teaching session of the day, and most of the teachers are in class. Even though this room is a hundred years newer than the one in his high school, Ryan still gets the same feeling from it. When he went to school, kids were not allowed near the staff room unless they were handing in punishment work or doing a chore for a teacher; neither was desirable. And despite the fact that this staff room is only eight years old, it still somehow has the same outdated green coffee mugs on a tray and scale-encrusted stainless-steel urn bubbling away for nobody, the same bland dove-grey vertical blinds that always get snagged up and droop from their cheap and broken plastic catches, the same square, butt-indented chairs covered in sticky green polyvinyl that haven’t been properly washed in all their days. Ryan’s fucked if he’s going to scrub between those seams.
‘Hey, Ryan,’ Thulani says, smiling. Ryan doesn’t know how the man can be so cheerful. He’s been here since the school was established, and before that he was a night janitor at a shopping mall. Cleaning up after other people all his life. But he’s always smiling from his grey-peppercorn-dusted cheeks and has a different loud shirt for every day of the week which he makes sure shows from between the buttons of his overall. Is that all happiness takes? Just a small, quiet assertion of individuality?
‘Hey, Thulani. What do you need me to do?’
‘Bins and vacuum?’
‘Sure thing.’
Ryan starts by picking up the larger bits of paper and detritus strewn on the staff room’s floor. The same teachers who’d administer a beating to a kid for littering... But then again, they don’t beat kids at school any more. How do they control them?
Since this morning, he’s been feeling twitchy, unsettled and he can’t think what’s caused it. He managed to damp the symptoms each time they appeared yesterday. It’s seemed like weeks since he last had the compulsion, and suddenly yesterday it was like a flood... But he calmed the ache each time it appeared – first the drive in Duvenhage’s office, then Artie’s book. What could be causing it now?
Oh, shit. His mind’s got to be fucking with him again.
Tess. He hasn’t felt that for a long time; he wished he never would again, but here it is. There was nothing he could do about it last night, so he just went to bed, drank the rest of the Three Ships and forgot about it. Until now. When he woke up this morning, the memory had gone like a dream; blurred by the hangover throb in his head.
He shovels the rubbish into a big black plastic bag, slivers of newspaper, misprinted test papers used for scrap pads, and flyers printed on yellow, pink and baby-blue paper. As he’s emptying the bin near the coffee counter, he notices a yellow page that has been scrunched up into a tiny ball, not just casually, but with some force. He’s interested to see what could have provoked such a strong reaction. He unballs the paper with long fingers, avoiding the gum and wet spots and smoothes it out on the carpet.
It’s an invitation for a meeting of some group called ENCOUNTERS, and it’s got a jumping Coke can with a smiling face on the picture. ‘Quizzes! Prizes! Body Art!’ it yells. One of the corners is missing, torn off. Ryan looks up at the notice board above the counter and there it is. The little yellow corner, still pinned against the navy felt. Somebody ripped the flyer down and crumpled it up angrily. One of the teachers objecting to a marketing roadshow being allowed in the school?
Ryan stands and takes the paper to where Thulani is standing on a short ladder reattaching the drooping blinds. ‘Do you know anything about this?’
‘What is it?’ Thulani unplugs his earphones and takes the paper.
‘Do you know anything about this group?’
‘Looks like some church group, youth group, something. I don’t know.’
‘Do you ever get the feeling that this place is... weird in some way?’
Thulani laughs and raises his eyebrows. ‘Like how?’
‘I don’t know. They’re always banging on about their “ethos”.’
Thulani shrugs.
‘And the headmaster, Mr Duvenhage. He’s new, isn’t he?’
‘Yes. Started this year.’
‘What happened to the old head?’
‘He retired.’
‘What does Duvenhage actually do?’
Thulani’s eyes dart around the room. ‘It’s a different system here since he started. Mr Duvenhage is like the business head. Fundraising, partnerships and things like that. I don’t know.’
‘Is he even a teacher?’
‘It’s a different system here since he came in,’ Thulani repeats. ‘It’s very different from the schools I went to.’
‘Yeah. Mine too.’
‘But a lot of things were different back then.’
‘Of course.’
‘Listen, Ryan. I’ve learnt in my life, and at this school, that it’s better just to do your job and not to ask questions. Keeps you happy. The answers don’t matter really, do they?’
‘I suppose not.’
Ryan’s changing out of his overalls when he sees the new girl drifting towards the maintenance sheds across the middle-school playing field. The bright green grass and the dusty blue sky behind her, and just the lone girl in her tan uniform remind him of something. A scene from a movie or a music video or something. He can’t remember. But with her bleached hair and her dead-pale skin, her disconnected attitude, she looks like an inverse goth, like a different subspecies of those girls who wear black layers and paint their lips and their eyes and their hair black. Not that there are girls like that at this school. If they go out on weekends dressed like that, they make sure to hide it at Crossley College. He’s never got close to girls like them; they’d simply never open up to a man like him. He appeals to a different sort of girl, girls like Tess next door.
But this girl’s too young to be a full-blown goth, or whatever she is, surely? She looks like she’s about ten, but at the same time she seems older, more experienced. It’s something in her eyes, and as she comes closer he realises he’s staring at her through the window of the shed, the overalls half off, his hands frozen at the button at his waist. And she’s staring back at his bare chest. Now she’s just a few metres away, coming up the slope off the playing field, her eyes still trained on him. Is she coming towards him? His heart jerks.
Ryan pulls his T-shirt on and straightens his hair and now she’s passing the window. Is she coming around to the door? He goes across and opens it, but she’s not outside. He goes back to the window, but she’s not there. He jogs out of the door and scans the path, looks around the side of the shed, but she’s disappeared. There’s a knot of kids waiting over at the car park for their lifts. She was probably heading that way after all and just blended in. Ryan blushes, even though nobody saw his embarrassing little performance.
But she was looking at him, that much he’s certain of. And that girl does not blend in.
He finishes dressing and walks through the parking lot, disturbed by how irrational the girl makes him. Another picture of Tess and how lost she looked last night jumps, unbidden into his head. He passes an olive-green Land Rover. Julie.
He ducks away, but it’s too late.
‘Hello, Ryan,’ Julie says.
‘Hi,’ he says. ‘How are you?’
She ignores the question. ‘You scared me last night. You scared Artie.’
Ryan shrugs. ‘I didn’t hurt him, did I? I just wanted him not to take my picture. It’s very rude to take someone’s picture without asking.’
‘You don’t think... what he saw... that would be a bit upsetting for a boy?’ He can see her eyes hardening. She’s not going to cry. ‘I’m sorrier than I can eve
r say that we were doing that.’
‘Are you serious? I don’t understand. Why should it matter to him? Your husband is obviously a—’
‘You know, there’s something wrong with you. Something missing.’
‘What do you want, Julie?’
‘I just want to be sure that you’re not going to... tell anyone about our...’ She retracts into the car. She looks afraid.
‘Listen. It’s over. It was over before you even fucking knew it. Out of my mind. Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone about our little mistake. It’s nothing I’m proud of.’
She stares forward. ‘Good. Then that’s fine.’ The window starts going up.
‘I dumped you, bitch. I fucking dumped you,’ he thinks.
Another embarrassing scene, and Ryan simply can’t understand what Julie’s problem is. She’s the one who seduced him. And he didn’t hurt the boy. He’ll get over it. Today’s turning into a bad one. He needs a drink.
He walks the short way along Smith Street to Bedford Centre knowing as he does so with his faded jeans and his grubby backpack that he’s starting to look more and more like someone who belongs outside, no longer a complacent suburbanite. Now he’s forced to scuff through the city’s grime with the rest of the poor people, get painted brown by its filthy air. When last was he a clean and complacent suburbanite, a shiny-smiled middle-class dad? Now the dirt has become ingrained in his skin, the sun’s had its way. And the booze, he supposes. Soon, he’ll look like someone the security guards might turn away at the entrance to the mall. But not yet. They’ll take his money while he still has it.
He heads straight to the bottle store and buys another couple of litres of Three Ships. He stashes one in his backpack and keeps the other in the blackish plastic bag and twists open the top. That crack of a bottle top; as satisfying as a good, spine-crackling stretch. He used to get wasted at cafes and bars, but now this is all he can afford. The alcohol’s the same chemical however and wherever you drink it.
He sits on a bench in the mall’s middle level, where he can get a good view of the franchise restaurants and the escalators and glass-sided lifts. He watches the late-afternoon shoppers going past and takes a furtive slug from the packet. Just one more for courage. He remembers pushing Alice in the grocery trolley right here. It would be their special time – Karin would get a morning off mothering and Ryan and Alice would do the weekly groceries. She must have been – what? – two or three when she sat in the front kiddie seat of the trolley, and she’d help him choose what they were looking for. As they went, he’d select her some fruit cuts and a juice to keep her happy.
If tonight were any other night of the week, he’d head straight back to his room, but not on a Wednesday. On Wednesdays Alice and Karin get take-aways, and sometimes it’s at this mall, and Ryan’s always waiting. It means that he gets to see his girl every couple of weeks, and if the circumstances are right, he might even get to speak to her. She never tells her mother; she’s good that way.
A few slugs later he sees Karin’s stick-thin frame clipping up the escalator, with Alice in resentful tow. His heart lifts, despite the fact that it looks like they’ve been fighting. Alice is wearing black again. Each time he sees her, she’s a bit moodier, a bit fatter. What the fuck is Karin doing to her?
Ryan follows at a distance, knowing from past experience that they’re heading either for the Pizza Supreme or the Island Health Foods, depending on their collective mood. He follows them past Island Health Foods. Pizza is the mood tonight. He watches them place their order. Karin sits on the couch in the waiting area and grabs a magazine. She smiles up at Alice but Alice stays standing, arms folded. Then she says something and Karin starts up, slams the magazine on the couch and stalks off. Alice sits, and pages through the magazine, her body slumping.
‘Hey, girl.’
‘Daddy!’ The smile that lights up Alice’s face seems to slough off all that extra baggage. She straightens up. ‘She’s gone to Pick n Pay.’
‘Sweetie, is she treating you well?’
‘She drives me mad. I miss you.’
Ryan’s heart fills up. ‘How’re you doing?’
‘Fine.’
‘And how’s school?’
‘Okay.’
‘I got you something.’ He rummages in his backpack, painfully aware of the sound of bottles clinking as he does. He shuffles past the boy’s soft porn that’s still in his bag and pulls out the Harry Potter book.
‘Oh, thanks, Dad.’ She’s trying hard to keep her smile on.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I already read it. Long time ago.’
‘Oh, I thought... We used to read the first one together, before... when...’
‘That’s a long time ago, Dad.’
‘I suppose it is. I’m sorry.’
He reaches out to take the book back, but she pulls it to herself. ‘Oh, but I want it, of course, Daddy.’ She puts on a smile, he knows, to please him. He loves her more for the effort. ‘I’m keeping it! You know, I can swap it for something else. Say it was a gift.’
‘Okay. I’m glad you like it then.’
She looks at him. Her face is still the same. ‘Dad?’
‘Yes, sweetie?’
‘When do you th—’
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’
‘Listen, Karin. I was just... here. I saw Alice. Here she is. I can’t say hello?’
‘No, you can’t! Now fuck off.’
‘Jesus, Karin. Is that any way to speak in front of Alice?’ He looks to Alice for support, but she’s already got up. She’s standing across the restaurant entrance, looking at nothing, folding her arms so hard she could twist herself in two. He turns back to Karin. ‘So how’s it going? Fucked any dealers lately?’
‘Fuck you, Ryan. Get the fuck away from us!’ She swats at him with her hand and he grabs her wrist and pushes back her sleeve. There’s nothing – no track marks, no bruises, no nothing. She’s clean. Dammit!
‘Get your hands off me!’ she screams. ‘I’m not your... I’ve got over you and your little hobbies.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ he asks, although he knows.
‘You know what I mean, you sick fuck.’
‘Excuse me. Excuse me!’ The restaurant manager’s grappling at him now. Ryan pushes him off.
‘I’ve got a job now. I’m going to get visitation rights back. I’m going to tell them that you’re not fit to be a mother.’
‘Look at me, Ryan.’ She puffs herself up, extends her scrawny neck like a chicken. ‘I’m better. I’m over you. You’ll never see Alice again. Do you think the court’s going to grant visitation to a strung-out drunk. After what you did to A—’
He grabs her mouth, mashing her lips, grinding her jaw, making it hurt. ‘You shut the fuck up,’ he snarls. ‘I never hurt her!’
The restaurant manager is still grabbing at him and he sees two security guards jogging along the corridor.
He lets go, picks up his backpack and crosses to Alice. ‘I’m sorry. You know what she’s like...’ Alice is crying but she doesn’t move to wipe her face. He reaches out to hold her arm but she jerks away.
‘I’m sorry, okay.’
Nothing.
‘See you.’
He walks away. He hears the slap and the shear of the book being thrown behind him. It skids all the way to his feet. He bends to pick it up and looks up for Alice, for one last moment of connection, but she’s retreated into the shadows of the restaurant.
Ryan’s tried drinking, he’s tried reading, he sat with Ma Beccah and watched some crap on television. None of it is helping to patch the gashes he’s suffered on this godawful day. He wishes he didn’t link Tess with his agitation last night; he doesn’t want that. And seeing Alice earlier this evening has only made it worse. So he’s been thinking: what if he faces the temptation and then says no, and the compulsion goes away. He can try that with Tess, can’t he? He’s stronger now, isn’t he? He can control himself. He’d b
e free.
He goes down the corridor and showers, puts on clean clothes, sprays on deodorant. He checks his watch. 11.47. He slings his backpack over his shoulder. The girl’s going to be fast asleep now, but maybe just being outside her house will resolve something. Besides, he’s not going to get any sleep in this state, so he may as well get some air.
Coming out the front door of Ma Beccah’s house, it’s the sort of crisp night he wishes he was a smoker. Smokers have a built-in reason to stand around outside and watch. You see someone standing on a pavement in the middle of the night, not smoking, and you know he’s up to no good.
But here he is, not smoking, standing outside Tess and Fransie’s house. It’s dead quiet, not a car or a pedestrian, not a cat. The streetlights through the dying leaves paint unwavering stencils on the pavement. The city thrums in the distance and he can hear the faraway rush of the highway, the bleat of a train down in Cleveland. The rocker on the veranda is vacant, but Ryan can almost imagine the shadow of Fransie’s malignant father shunting it back and forth in the cool air. The single fluorescent bulb at the front door flickers.
Is it his imagination, or is he feeling calmer? Or is it just the fresh air after all? ‘Hello, Mr Ryan.’ She’s come out of the overgrown side of the garden again and is standing alongside him, on the other side of the low precast wall. She’s wearing cheap tracksuit pants and a loose T-shirt, thin flip-flops on her feet.
‘Jesus, Tess. Christ, what are you doing here?’
‘Uh, it’s my house?’
‘I mean, what are you doing out? Why are you up?’
‘I couldn’t sleep.’
‘Where’s your father?’
‘Out.’
‘Is anyone looking after you?’
‘Grampa’s there, but...’
They don’t love this girl like they should. She’s all alone in the world.
‘Hey, Tess,’ he says, ‘I got you something.’ He drops his backpack to the pavement and squats over it. He brings out the book and hands it to her.
She looks like a child on Christmas morning. The way children are supposed to react. ‘Oh, Mr Ryan! That’s awesome. I saw the movies. I always wanted to read Harry Potter. Thank you! Thank you!’